Pamela K. Woodard, MD, FACR, Chair of the American College of Radiology® (ACR®) Commission on Research, contributed this post.
Research plays a central role in the advancement of radiology practice. Discoveries and innovation fuel our ability to provide high-quality care to our patients. Though clinical research advancements often require significant investments, the ACR is fortunately supportive of members in this pursuit.
As Chair of the ACR Commission on Research, I'm pleased to share the Fund for Collaborative Research in Imaging (FCRI) Grant. The goal of the FCRI Grant is to fund compelling, innovative research that advances the practice of radiology and is designed to promote research collaborations between the ACR and its members.
The fiscal year 2021 grant recipients were announced in June and demonstrate the breadth of types of clinical research projects the ACR undertakes. Each of these two projects are currently in the development phase but will activate and report out within two years. The first is the LI-RADS Imaging Research Registry, a multi-institutional effort applying ACR LI-RADS®, DART, TRIAD and ACR ASSIST® to identify eligible patient cases of images and clinical data and aggregate them in an effort to identify imaging features that predict hepatocellular carcinoma biological aggressiveness and overall survival in patients with lesions categorized as LR-5. The other is the Coronary Artery Calcium Scoring project, a multicenter, randomized, prospective study designed to test the efficacy of patient-centered educational intervention based on coronary artery calcification in cardiovascular risk factor modification in a cohort of patients enrolled in lung cancer screening programs across the country. The Calcium Scoring project aims to improve patient care and outcomes by getting more information from the lung screening chest CT. Patients presenting for lung cancer screening will have that non-gated chest CT scan also interpreted for coronary atherosclerotic calcification.
The FCRI Grant fills an important funding gap in clinical research — unique, one-time investments in the most compelling, innovative research ideas in effort to generate preliminary data to enable researchers to pursue more traditional, large-scale funding mechanisms that could only be performed with the addition of ACR resources.
The FCRI Grant is exclusively available to ACR members. Individuals or groups may submit applications with a total budget of up to $200,000. More than one proposal may be funded, and the total for all awards is limited to $400,000.
I encourage all clinical radiology researchers interested in working with the ACR to learn more and submit your application by Thursday, Jan. 13 at 5pm ET.