Generating Synthetic Data for Medical Imaging.

Journal: Radiology
Published Date: Sep 1, 2024

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) models for medical imaging tasks, such as classification or segmentation, require large and diverse datasets of images. However, due to privacy and ethical issues, as well as data sharing infrastructure barriers, these datasets are scarce and difficult to assemble. Synthetic medical imaging data generated by AI from existing data could address this challenge by augmenting and anonymizing real imaging data. In addition, synthetic data enable new applications, including modality translation, contrast synthesis, and professional training for radiologists. However, the use of synthetic data also poses technical and ethical challenges. These challenges include ensuring the realism and diversity of the synthesized images while keeping data unidentifiable, evaluating the performance and generalizability of models trained on synthetic data, and high computational costs. Since existing regulations are not sufficient to guarantee the safe and ethical use of synthetic images, it becomes evident that updated laws and more rigorous oversight are needed. Regulatory bodies, physicians, and AI developers should collaborate to develop, maintain, and continually refine best practices for synthetic data. This review aims to provide an overview of the current knowledge of synthetic data in medical imaging and highlights current key challenges in the field to guide future research and development.

Authors

  • Lennart R Koetzier
    Department of Clinical Technology, Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime, and Materials Engineering (3ME), Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, NL-2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands.
  • Jie Wu
    Center of Disease Control of Qingdao, 175 Shandong Road, Qingdao, Shandong, 266001, China.
  • Domenico Mastrodicasa
    Division of Cardiovascular Imaging, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Medical University of South Carolina, Ashley River Tower, 25 Courtenay Dr, Charleston, SC 29425-2260 (S.S.M., D.M., M.v.A., C.N.D.C., R.R.B., C.T., A.V.S., A.M.F., B.E.J., L.P.G., U.J.S.); Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany (S.S.M., T.J.V.); Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Stanford, Calif (D.M.); Division of Cardiothoracic Imaging, Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga (C.N.D.C.); Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC (R.R.B.); Department of Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Heart Center Munich-Bogenhausen, Munich, Germany (C.T.); Department of Cardiology, Munich University Clinic, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany (C.T.); Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Malvern, Pa (P.S.); and Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC (A.J.M.).
  • Aline Lutz
    From the Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands (L.R.K.); Segmed, 3790 El Camino Real #810, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (J.W., A.L., M.C., W.A.K., J.P., M.J.W.); Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Department of Radiology, OncoRad/Tumor Imaging Metrics Core, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass (J.P.); Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass (P.R.); Microsoft, Redmond, Wash (M.P.L.); and Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif (M.P.L.).
  • Matthew Chung
    From the Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands (L.R.K.); Segmed, 3790 El Camino Real #810, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (J.W., A.L., M.C., W.A.K., J.P., M.J.W.); Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Department of Radiology, OncoRad/Tumor Imaging Metrics Core, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass (J.P.); Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass (P.R.); Microsoft, Redmond, Wash (M.P.L.); and Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif (M.P.L.).
  • W Adam Koszek
    From the Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands (L.R.K.); Segmed, 3790 El Camino Real #810, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (J.W., A.L., M.C., W.A.K., J.P., M.J.W.); Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Department of Radiology, OncoRad/Tumor Imaging Metrics Core, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass (J.P.); Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass (P.R.); Microsoft, Redmond, Wash (M.P.L.); and Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif (M.P.L.).
  • Jayanth Pratap
    From the Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands (L.R.K.); Segmed, 3790 El Camino Real #810, Palo Alto, CA 94306 (J.W., A.L., M.C., W.A.K., J.P., M.J.W.); Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Department of Radiology, OncoRad/Tumor Imaging Metrics Core, Seattle, Wash (D.M.); Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass (J.P.); Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif (A.S.C.); Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass (P.R.); Microsoft, Redmond, Wash (M.P.L.); and Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif (M.P.L.).
  • Akshay S Chaudhari
    Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
  • Pranav Rajpurkar
    Harvard Medical School, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Cambridge, MA, 02115, US.
  • Matthew P Lungren
  • Martin J Willemink
    Departments of Radiology (L.D.H., G.M., K.H., M.K., M.J.W., A.M.S., D.F.) and Surgery (M.F.), Stanford University School of Medicine, 300 Pasteur Dr, Room S-072, Stanford, CA 94305-5105.

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