240 professionals from more than 20 countries registered for the workshop event’ Al and Cancer: Unleashing Opportunities, Overcoming Challenges’, coorganized by INCISIVE, EUCAIM, and the AI4HI cluster, with the local support of Medtronic and TIC Salut Social Foundation, the 7^th of November in Madrid, Spain. The video and presentations of the event are available on the links provided at the end of this article.

The workshop joined clinicians, researchers, AI developers, lawyers, innovation managers, and other professionals interested in oncology and AI working in hospitals, universities, research institutes, research infrastructures, and private companies. During the event, speakers and attendants jointly explored how AI powered by health data sharing can transform cancer challenges into remarkable opportunities, in the following roundtables: introduction to medical imaging repositories and their importance in research and clinical practice; the process, benefits and challenges of data sharing; developed services and emerging technologies and tools for cancer medical imaging data analysis and visualization; and success stories of cancer medical imaging in advancing cancer research and patient care.

INCISIVE’s coordinator, Gianna Tsakou, stressed at the closure of the event that, after all the discussions regarding technologies, infrastructures, solutions on data interoperability, GDPR compliance, and many other topics, she hopes that “most of us will take advantage of the large amounts of existing knowledge, technologies and experiences to embrace data sharing and even to enhance it further.” She also acknowledged that there will always be challenges and risks because sensitive personal data are involved. Still, it is very much about taking the decision to share data after adopting appropriate risk mitigation measures, which is feasible, because eventually, as she said, “the benefits of data sharing are indeed much more than the challenges and difficulties.”

EUCAIM’s coordinator, Prof. Luis Martí-Bonmatí, agreed with Tsakou’s comments and added that we have tools to integrate the results and continue the efforts of the AI4HI projects through the creation of the European federated infrastructure for cancer images. He recognized that this requires “a huge amount of effort, but we are able to do it and we are really in the right position to be heard by the European Commission, to be funded by the research projects, and to keep the lead in this integration effort.”

Tsakou and Martí-Bonmatí concluded the event together with the event’s key note speaker, Thanos Kosmidis, co-founder & CEO at Care Across and Member of the INCISIVE Advisory Board, who had previously emphasized in his keynote speech this meaningful message at the end of his presentation:

Agenda with the event’s videos and presentations:

Welcome and Keynote Speech [video] [presentations]

• Gianna Tsakou, Project Manager at Maggioli Group, Coordinator of INCISIVE project and moderator
• Aleksandra Wesolowska, European Commission, Programme Officer – EU Policies, CNECT.H3 – eHealth, Well-Being and Ageing
• Thanos Kosmidis, Co-founder & CEO at Care Across, Member of INCISIVE Advisory Board, Keynote Speaker

Introduction to cancer medical imaging repositories and their importance in research and clinical practice [video] [presentations]

• Gianna Tsakou, Project Manager at Maggioli Group, Coordinator of INCISIVE project
• Oliver Díaz. Associate professor and oncology lead scientist of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Lab at the University of Barcelona, Scientific Coordinator of RadioVal project.
• Kostas Marias, Professor of Medical Image Processing at Hellenic Mediterranean University, Technical Director of ProCAncer-I project
• Ignacio Blanquer, Professor in the Computer System department at Polytechnic University of Valencia, Representative of PRIMAGE and CHAIMELEON
• Luis Martí-Bonmatí, Director of the Medical Imaging Department at the La Fe Polytechnic University Hospital, Coordinator of EUCAIM, PRIMAGE and CHAIMELEON project

The process, benefits and challenges of data sharing (ethical and legal considerations, cybersecurity, and privacy protection) [video] [presentations]

• Ricard Martínez, Director of the Chair in Privacy and Digital Transformation at the University of Valencia, CHAIMELEON project [video]
• Magdalena Kogut-Czarkowska, Privacy and IPTech lawyer at Timelex, INCISIVE project
• Susanna Aussó, Head of AI at TIC Salut Social Foundation and representative of the Catalonian AI Programme, INCISIVE project
• Antonio Orduña, Applications and systems engineer at La Fe Polytechnic University Hospital
• Ana Belén Callado, Communication Manager at TIC Salut Social Foundation, INCISIVE communication leader, moderator

Developed services and emerging technologies and tools for cancer medical imaging data analysis and visualization [video]

• Alberto Gutiérrez, Postdoctoral researcher on Computer Sciences at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. INCISIVE project
• Ana Jiménez, Vice President of AI at Quibim, PRIMAGE and CHAIMELEON projects
• Leonor Cerdá Alberich, Physicist at La Fe Health Research Institute. EUCAIM project
• Vicente Martínez de Vega Fernández, Head of the Imaging Diagnosis Department at Quirónsalud University Hospital Madrid; Ruber Juan Bravo Hospital and Quirónsalud San José
• Felipe Couñago, Radiation Oncologist, Clinical Director of GenesisCare Madrid

Success stories of cancer medical imaging in advancing cancer research and patient care [video] [presentations]

• Vladan Zdravković, Project manager at Visaris, INCISIVE project
• Javier Sánchez, Clinical Science Lead South Europe at Philips
• Mario Aznar, CEO of Matical Innovation, PRIMAGE and CHAIMELEON projects
• Pau López, Head of the Informations Systems Technical Office of the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS)
• Javier Miguel Aquerreta, Biomedical Engineer at La Fe Health Research Institute
• Susanna Aussó, Head of AI at TIC Salut Social Foundation and representative of the Catalonian AI Programme, INCISIVE project, moderator.

Q&A and closing session [video]