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IRAT Project
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) provided administrative supplements to eight NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers to establish Imaging Response Assessment Teams (IRATs).  The concept for Imaging Response Assessment Teams grew out of discussions within the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) and between AACI and NCI.  AACI established a Cancer Imaging Initiative to explore how cancer centers can partner more effectively with the National Cancer Institute, private industry, and other cancer research entities to develop new research and clinical trials opportunities in imaging.

AACI partnered with the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN), a cooperative group sponsored by NCI's Cancer Imaging Program, to co-sponsor a special imaging workshop for cancer center directors and chairs of radiology.  This workshop identified barriers to productive collaboration by cancer centers and radiology departments and developed recommendations for the promotion of imaging studies in cancer research.  Their recommendations included the short-term goal of establishing “radiology response assessment teams” comprised of radiologists and imaging scientists to participate in the initial design of therapy-based clinical trials.  A similar recommendation for Imaging Response Assessment Teams was made at a workshop on biomarkers organized by the NCI, the FDA, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Purpose
IRAT Supplement Awards facilitate development of oncologic IRATs in Cancer Centers to advance the role of imaging in assessment of response to therapy.  The project works to increase the application of quantitative anatomic, functional, and molecular imaging endpoints in clinical therapeutic trials. IRATs provide enhanced involvement in quantitative analysis, interpretation, and integration of imaging data in response to therapy trials, as well as regular dissemination and communication of these methods with IRATs at other institutions.

Further intent is to increase clinical collaboration between imaging scientists and oncologic investigators at Cancer Centers to identify new oncologic imaging research opportunities in clinical trials that warrant multi-center clinical investigations and integrate imaging data as potential biomarkers or candidate surrogate markers in clinical therapeutic trials.