The HIRO currently has three primary responsibilities (or "teams"): (1) coordinating the acquisition of imaging data for clinical trials in a manner consistent with trial protocol, (2) providing assessment and measurement of disease response for clinical trials in a consistent and coherent manner, and (3) managing and distributing clinical image data for research studies in an IRB- and HIPAA-compliant manner.

The Image Acquisition Team is responsible for coordinating any issues related to the planning and execution of research-related human imaging. This includes protocol preparation and review with the principal investigator and his/her team, imaging protocol coordination with clinical and research radiology staff, scan scheduling and billing coordination, resource and data management, and quality assurance. The Image Measurement and Analysis Team is responsible for providing investigators with tumor and lesion measurement data in a consistent and efficient manner. This includes ensuring that measurements are made in accordance with the study protocol’s specific requirements (e.g., RECIST), providing consistent measurements for follow-up scans, and ensuring that required measurement data is completed and delivered in a timely fashion. The Image Collection and Database Team is responsible for providing researchers with "de-identified" (or "anonymized") consented patient information and medical images for use in biomedical research. The image collection arm also interacts with the acquisition arm to provide support and data delivery services for prospective clinical trials, and it is involved with several data mining projects with the Radiology Informatics team.

For more details concerning the HIRO's various services, please see the Services section of our website.

Click here to return to the FAQ.