The RACOON Radiological Cooperative Network, which collects imaging data from COVID-19 cases, is playing an essential role in radiology's response to the pandemic and has opened the door to more nationwide research collaboration, the German Röntgen Society (DRG) has stated.
All Germany's radiological university clinics, as well as the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS in Bremen, and the Technical University of Darmstadt, are participating in the network.
Images in the network provide quantitative information about diseases and patients and the data are made available for systematic, comprehensive analyses, networked, and used for the further development of artificial intelligence, noted the DRG.
The RACOON cohort consists of more than 14,000 CT exams and more than 3,000 x-ray exams with associated machine-readable, structured findings. In the end, it will become a Germany-wide dataset for collaborative image data research with more 6.6 million items, according to the DRG.
The future of the initiative was addressed recently at the "RACOON Retreat 2022" session, which took place at the Charité Campus Virchow Klinikum in Berlin, as well as at the 103rd German X-ray Congress at the end of May in Wiesbaden.
RACOON is being overseen by five senior German radiologists: Prof. Dr. Bernd Hamm, Dr. Tobias Penzkofer, Prof. Dr. Thomas Vogl, Dr. Andreas Bucher, and Prof. Dr. Jens Kleesiek
To read the full article, go to the DRG website.
