“Après Mois, Le Déluge”: Preparing for the Coming Data Flood in the MRI-Guided Radiotherapy Era

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging provides a sea of quantitative and semi-quantitative data. While radiation oncologists already navigate a pool of clinical (semantic) and imaging data, the tide will swell with the advent of hybrid MRI/linear accelerator devices and increasing interest in MRI-guided radiotherapy (MRIgRT), including adaptive MRIgRT. The variety of MR sequences (of greater complexity than the single parameter Hounsfield unit of CT scanning routinely used in radiotherapy), the workflow of adaptive fractionation, and the sheer quantity of daily images acquired are challenges for scaling this technology. Biomedical informatics, which is the science of information in biomedicine, can provide helpful insights for this looming transition. Funneling MRIgRT data into clinically meaningful information streams requires committing to the flow of inter-institutional data accessibility and interoperability initiatives, standardizing MRIgRT dosimetry methods, streamlining MR linear accelerator workflow, and standardizing MRI acquisition and post-processing. This review will attempt to conceptually ford these topics using clinical informatics approaches as a theoretical bridge.