Praxis has embarked on an exciting initiative to build the first national Canadian Imaging Repository for SCI to enable studying the use of imaging as a biomarker to inform clinical assessments and understand outcomes for those living with SCI . We have partnered with neuroimaging experts, Dr. David Cadotte from the University of Calgary, Dr. Julien Cohen-Adad from Polytechnique Montreal, and their teams, to lead this initiative as a sub-study of the Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry (RHSCIR). Twelve RHSCIR sites across Canada have joined this initiative so far.
In this project, we take routinely acquired magnetic resonance images (MRI) of existing RHSCIR participants and remove all personal information, then we organize them in a consistent format and pool the images from across different hospitals to create the national repository. These images, together with the clinical data already available in RHSCIR, will be used to support the development of imaging biomarkers for SCI. Imaging biomarkers refer to different features in an image which can be related to the patient’s diagnosis or be indicative of their recovery.
The imaging repository is a key infrastructure for SCI research and is designed for imaging analytics for all spinal disorders (e.g. traumatic and non-traumatic SCI and other conditions). With the data and images contributed by the RHSCIR participants, we can study imaging biomarkers to improve diagnosis and prognosis, and move towards personalized treatments for individuals with SCI.