Leading Health and Life Sciences in Nova Scotia

Interview with Mo Abdolel, CEO & Founder, Densitas Inc

Read original here

Mo Abdolell is CEO/Founder of Densitas Inc., a company focused on the mammography enterprise that delivers machine learning solutions for personalized breast health with technologies focused on breast density, clinical image quality, tailored risk.

Mo is also Associate Professor, Diagnostic Radiology, Dalhousie University and as a consulting biostatistician has 25 years experience in study design, statistical analysis and machine learning in biomedical/clinical research.

Densitas has also launched a program to help with radiology personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic. What is the program being offered?

In these unprecedented times, the primary focus of care is necessarily devoted to critically ill patients.

An unfortunate consequence of COVID-19 is that breast cancer screening has largely been put on hold.

Yet, even in the hardest hit regions we are seeing mammography facilities already planning to ramp up, starting with diagnostic and followed by screening mammography exam bookings.  As that happens, the sheer number of patients awaiting breast screening in the coming weeks and months (rescheduled and net new) will present a monumental challenge to mammography facilities and health systems, with radiology personnel stretched thin.

It will be important to ensure that clinical image quality is maintained at the highest standard despite the stress of overloaded imaging throughput. AI automation of clinical image quality assessment, integrated in a comprehensive analytics and reporting platform, will boost MQSA inspection preparedness and will free up crucial resources for patient care. AI automation of breast density and breast cancer risk scoring and reporting will increase workflow efficiency and support tailored follow-up screening protocols.

Entrevestor: Densitas Breast Density Tool In PEI

Halifax-based Densitas, whose software helps assess the density of breasts during mammograms, has announced that Prince Edward Island has become the second province, after Nova Scotia, to integrate its software across its screening program.

The Densitas software — named Densitas densityai —  provides an automated mechanism for quantifying and recording breast tissue density, a risk factor for breast cancer in women. Dense breasts can mask cancerous cells. Dense breast tissue is also linked to higher chances of cancer.

Now, every woman who receives a screening mammogram on P.E.I. will be notified of her​ breast density through the company’s densityai algorithm.

“Our advanced solutions are built to solve real clinical problems and effectively support healthcare providers,” said Ryan Duggan, Director of Product Development at Densitas in a statement.

The Densitas platform comprises three different products that tackle challenges in breast cancer screening, including mammography quality, workflow efficiencies, compliance with national standards, and meeting accreditation requirements.

ENTREVESTOR – Densitas Joins Nuance Marketplace

See original Entrevestor article here

Halifax-based Densitas Inc. whose software helps assess the density of breasts during mammograms, announced this week its densitas densityai software will soon be available on the Nuance AI Marketplace.

In a statement, Densitas said the Nuance marketplace provides access to more than 70 percent of all radiologists across the largest network of connected healthcare facilities in the U.S.

“AI can play an important supporting role for radiologists by automating routine, time-consuming, subjective and fatiguing tasks so that they can focus on more challenging interpretive tasks,” said Woojin Kim, chief medical information officer at the Healthcare Division of Nuance Communications.

“What sets densitas densityai apart is that it has been thoughtfully designed to process routinely archived mammograms so that breast density assessments can be obtained from historical studies when comparing current with prior exams.”

Densitas densityai delivers automated breast density assessments from standard digital imaging in the medical community. The Densitas software provides an automated mechanism for quantifying and recording breast tissue density, a risk factor for breast cancer in women. Dense breasts can mask cancerous cells. Dense breast tissue is also linked to higher chances of cancer.

As well as speeding and simplifying the process of quantifying breast density, the Densitas technology standardizes the density measurement and enables stratification of women to ensure those who need more aggressive follow-up receive it.

Approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the densitas densityai solution uses artificial intelligence to align with how the human eye processes breast images in mammograms. It rapidly generates reproducible and standardized breast density assessments.

Densitas recently announced that densitas densityai has also been selected for use in a major breast screening trial in Germany.

Densitas Software Wins Procurement For DIMASOS Breast Screening Trial In Germany

See original news release here

Announcing our densitas densityai™ software will be deployed in up to 24 clinics throughout Germany as part of a procurement for a major breast cancer screening trial.

Our software will be used to provide breast density measurements at point of care to identify women for supplemental breast cancer screening as part of the DIMASOS 2 Trial.The announcement highlights not just the importance to this trial of the software’s unique ability to process prior ‘for presentation’ mammograms from a wide range of scanner vendors, but to any practical clinical deployment.

What is the objective of the trial?

The trial will aim to establish whether combined mammography and ultrasound exams can improve early breast cancer detection. It will also explore if this can be done feasibly and cost-effectively in standard screening workflow.

Who is leading the trial?

The trial will be led by Prof. Dr. Sylvia H. Heywang-Köbrunner, M.D., Head of Referenzzentrum Mammographie München, internationally recognized for her pioneering work in contrast-enhanced breast MRI and modern biopsy procedures.

She will be using densitas densityai™ breast density measures to establish a supplemental ultrasound screening protocol in the DIMASOS 2 trial.

When asked about the trial, Dr. Heywang-Köbrunner said:

“Women with dense breasts are subject to the masking effect of mammographic density and its association with breast cancer risk. The objective of the DIMASOS 2 trial is to test whether combined mammography/ultrasound exams can improve early cancer detection and if this can feasibly and cost effectively be done in routine screening workflow.

The unique ability of the Densitas® software to analyze prior ‘for presentation’ mammograms from a wide range of mammography scanner vendor models is pivotal to this trial and is important for any practical clinical deployment.” 

What is our densitas densityai™ software used for?

Our densitas densityai™ software delivers fully automated, standardized, and reproducible breast density assessments from standard DICOM clinical use mammograms.

Results from densitas densityai™ are generated by two distinct algorithms that decouple the breast density assessment into quantitative and qualitative scales in alignment with the ACR BI-RADS 4th and 5th edition density classification system.

These results can be incorporated into breast cancer risk models to provide standardized and reproducible patient-specific risk estimates.

Mo Abdolell, CEO of Densitas, had this to say about the procurement:

“Being selected as the vendor of choice to provide automated breast density assessment for the DIMASOS 2 Trial attests to our modern AI-driven technology superseding dated breast density algorithms developed prior to the introduction of the ACR BI-RADS 5th ed. density scale in 2013.

Densitas densityai™ processes the same clinical use images that radiologists examine, setting it apart by enabling seamless PACS-centric integrations and retrospective auditing capabilities of routinely archived exams. This makes it an ideal fit for the DIMASOS 2 trial.

More broadly this also simplifies clinical deployments, and is more cost effective and deeply integrated into radiologist reporting workflows with key applications and platforms that include Nuance PowerScribe One and PowerScribe 360 Reporting, The Nuance AI Marketplace, Blackford Platform and Curated Marketplace,  Ikonopedia structured breast reporting and tracking software, TeraRecon’s AI interoperability platform, EnvoyAI, and Three Palm Software’s WorkstationOne.”


Get in touch with our team

Interested in learning more about how our suite of solutions for digital mammography  is helping move the needle in breast cancer screening?

Schedule a demo with a member of our sales team to get a tailored walkthrough of our entire suite of solutions offered as part of the densitasai™ platform.

ENTREVESTOR: Medteq Backs Densitas, Spring Loaded

Read the full Entrevestor article here

Two Halifax-area medtech companies – Spring Loaded Technology and Densitas – have received a slice of an $11 million equity funding exercise anchored by the Montreal-based health technology organization Medteq.

Medteq, which nurtures Canadian health-technology innovators, issued a statement saying that its $14 million investment fund made its first investments, backing eight companies based in Montreal and Halifax. MEDTEQ invested alongside co-investors including: Anges-Quebec, Anges-Quebec Capital, Innovacorp, Real Ventures and others.

The target companies included Spring Loaded, which makes advanced knee braces, and Densitas, which assesses the density of breast tissue during mammograms. Innovacorp, the Nova Scotia government’s early-stage venture capital agency, was already an existing investor in both companies.

Entrevestor: Densitas Partners with U.S. Beta User

Halifax-based breast imaging analytics company Densitas has announced a collaboration with TeleMammography Specialists of Decatur, Georgia, that will improve the quality of breast screening offered to more than 60,000 women annually.
TeleMammography Specialists is an international teleradiology services provider and will be the first U.S. beta user for the new densitasquality solution, the company said in a statement. The product will improve the communications and information sharing needed to meet FDA guidelines.
TeleMammography Specialists also plan to implement the recently released densitasdensity automated breast density assessment software.
“Our goal is to provide tools that reduce the documentation, process and communication burdens of meeting EQUIP (FDA) guidelines and enables sustainable delivery of quality assurance across the mammography enterprise,” Mohamed Abdolell, CEO of Densitas, said in the statement.

See full article here