Castilla-La Mancha's regional government and Indra implement the first regional and integral CAD system for digital mamography in Spain

Indra, the premier IT company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe, has implemented in Castilla-La Manchas hospitals, the first regional and integral computed-aided diagnosis system for digital mammography in Spain.

The CAD system is implemented in all Castilla-La Mancha hospitals that conduct digital mammography imaging and is already integrated with the rest of the applications of Ykonos, the digital medical imaging solution developed by Castilla-LaMancha’s regional government through SESCAM in cooperation with Indra. Hence, SESCAM radiologists can access from anywhere within the regional healthcare services to complete studies that include CAD results along with mammography imaging.

The implementation of regional CAD and the incorporation of its imaging into Ykonos reinforce the role of mammographies in the early detection of breast cancer since they provide a second reading in order to foresee a possible injury and reduce errors significantly.

The solution implemented by Indra incorporate the latest technologies to detect calcifications and thickness and show radiologists areas where they should focus.

Besides the CAD mammography systems, the IT company integrated in Ykonos a volumetric evaluation of the fibrous glandular tissue, a pioneer solution in Europe that implies a great innovation in the interpretation of digital mammographies. This powerful technology employs a model of the image formation through x-rays to assess the fibrous glandular tissue, where most of all pathologies occur. This system objectively evaluates the thickness of breast tissue which is an important factor in mammography interpretation as recent studies show cancer is more likely to occur in thick breast tissue.

Lung and kidney CAD

As a complement to the CAD mammography network, Indra has implemented two lung CAD systems and two kidney CAD systems in two SESCAM hospitals. These systems process
TAC studies and point out to radiologist areas that may contain tumours so that specialist can analyse them and then render a report. The analysis is carried out in an advanced, specific diagnosis station.

This application allows automatic segmentation of the tumour areas thus facilitating an evolution report of oncology patients. Once the results have been evaluated by the radiologist, they can be accessed along with the study by either primary care doctors or specialists because it supplies additional information to the radiology report.

Ykonos, developed in cooperation with Indra, is one the most outstanding initiatives by Castilla-La Mancha’s regional government after the decentralization of healthcare. The system has made a reference of the regional hospital network, not only for the rest of Spain but also for Europe and USA.

Thanks to this medical digital imaging system which is already into service in all hospitals of the area and in specialised centres, radiographies, ultrasound scans and other imaging tests are no longer stored in film format; instead they are digitalised and filed along with the corresponding report in SESCAM’s private network systems which can be accessed from any other regional centre.

Leadership in health systems

Currently, Indra’s health care management systems provide two thirds of the national population with services; for instance we can highlight avant-garde projects such as the electronic prescription in Andalusia, the first autonomous region to replace the traditional prescription with the sanitary card, Abucasis, a cutting-edge system at national level that collects all the information regarding medical records of the Valencia community or Ianus, the sanitary platform that integrates the Electronic Clinical Records of the Servizo Galego de Saúde (SERGAS).

It is worth mentioning that Indra’s technologies and knowledge applied to health are based on its Salud 2.0 platform which specialises in Telemedicine, digital imaging, electronic prescription or electronic medical records, among others. This platform is the fruit of cumulative experience in the development of projects for private and public sectors, at both national and international levels, which translates into an opportunity thanks to system interoperability after decentralization in health care.

Among the company’s latest projects we can mention: SESCAM’s digital imaging systems (Ykonos) and the systems implemented for the Ministry of Defence and the regional government of Aragon.

Indra is the premier Information Technology company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe and Latin America. It is ranked as the second European company in its sector according to stock market capitalisation, and also the second Spanish company with the most investment in R&D. In 2008, revenues reached € 2,380 M, of which a third came from the international market. The company employs more than 29,000 professionals and has clients in more than 90 countries.