A malignant tumor in the brain is a life-threatening condition. Known as glioblastoma, it's both the most common form of brain cancer in adults and the one with the worst prognosis, with median survival being less than a year. The presence of a specific genetic sequence in the tumor known as MGMT promoter methylation has been shown to be a favorable prognostic factor and a strong predictor of responsiveness to chemotherapy.
Image credit: Christaras A/Wikipedia/CC BY 2.5
Currently, genetic analysis of cancer requires surgery to extract a tissue sample. Then it can take several weeks to determine the genetic characterization of the tumor. Depending upon the results and type of initial therapy chosen, a subsequent surgery may be necessary. If an accurate method to predict the genetics of the cancer through imaging (i.e., radiogenomics) alone could be developed, this would potentially minimize the number of surgeries and refine the type of therapy required.
The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) has teamed up with the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention Society (the MICCAI Society) to improve diagnosis and treatment planning for patients with glioblastoma. In this competition you will predict the genetic subtype of glioblastoma using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans to train and test your model to detect for the presence of MGMT promoter methylation.
Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM UTC, October 8, 2021.
Source: Kaggle