December 18, 2012 — ClearCanvas Inc. has rolled out integration between the ClearCanvas open source picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and workstation and the Tumor Imaging Metrics Core (TIMC) clinical trials system developed at Massachusetts General Hospital for use in managing clinical trials across multiple institutions.
ClearCanvas' software development platform allows innovators to easily build specialized plug-ins to extend the functionality of their products. Because the platform provides all the required image visualization and management services, innovators can focus on the specifics of their respective core competencies.
"We could not find off-the-shelf commercial software that met our requirements, so we decided to build custom tools designed to our own specifications for making protocol-driven measurements for cancer clinical trials and to electronically link these measurements and images to the Web-based workflow management and reporting system that we developed for our Tumor Imaging Metrics Core," said Gordon J. Harris, Ph.D., co-director of TIMC. "By creating plug-in software modules within an open source radiology imaging environment, we were able to build our own custom-designed measurement tools and upload results directly to our Web-based tracking system to create a comprehensive and integrated solution that can serve as a common platform across multiple cancer centers."
Harris said that with an integrated system that manages all aspects of clinical trials measurements, the TIMC has been able to provide efficient and reliable tumor measurements, with rapid turnaround time, across multiple hospitals. TIMC, which is used by hospitals comprising the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, can deliver improved quality tumor metrics for oncologists, with less effort and disruption for oncology coordinators and radiologists, helping ensure that patients are appropriately qualified for participation criteria in clinical trials.
"We are very excited about what the TIMC has done," said Norman Young, CEO of ClearCanvas. "This integration has demonstrated exactly what the ClearCanvas platform is intended for. It has enabled a team of innovators to quickly and easily build and integrate new specialized tools without worrying about building the PACS to host them, saving time and resources."
For more information: www.clearcanvas.ca
June 08, 2026 
