Important note: This Collection served as the pilot data set for TCGA-GBM image analysis.  A revised data set with additional cases (including all of the ones in this pilot set) can be found in The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA).  For more information about the complete collection please visit the TCIA wiki's TCGA-GBM Collection page.

Project Summary

The Cancer Imaging Program (CIP) with the cooperation of several of the TCGA tissue-contributing institutions has archived a large portion of the radiological images of the genetically-analyzed cases. Clinical, genetic, and pathological data resides in the TCGA data portal while the radiological data is stored within NBIA. The data utilizes the same TCGA patient identifiers in both repositories, allowing researchers to explore the correlations between tissue genotype and radiological phenotype. Although the image archive has only acquired GBM cases at this point images from new TCGA-studied tumor types will be acquired and made available on the public NBIA archive.

CIP TCGA Informatics Initiative

The Cancer Imaging Program has begun multiple projects to collaborate with the academic community to encourage cross disciplinary research which utilizes the data provided in these valuable resources. More information about ongoing projects in this area can be found on the CIP TCGA Radiology Initiative wiki page.

caBIG Tools for TCGA Analysis

Informatics software for use with this data has also been developed as part of the caBIG TCGA Enterprise Use-Case project. This caBIG enterprise use-case enables TCGA images stored in NBIA to be displayed on three different free and/or open source DICOM viewer workstations that possess annotation and markup capabilities based on Annotation Imaging Markup (AIM).

At present, the caBIG Imaging Workspace completed Phase I of this Enterprise Use-Case. ClearCanvas (Windows OS), Osirix (Mac) and XIP (caBIG open source/cross platform) were customized to allow retrieval of images from NBIA over the caGrid, markup by AIM standards, and storage back to an AIM-E Grid data service. More information can be found on the TCGA Radiology Project Phase I Homepage.

Data Access

You can view and download these images on NBIA. You do not need to log in unless you want access to advanced features in the site. Simply follow these steps:

• Navigate to http://imaging.nci.nih.gov
• Click the "Search Images" link in the center of the page
• Scroll down through the search criteria until you see the "Collections" section
• Select the "TCGA" check box
• Press "Submit"

This will return the full list of cases included in the collection. To download the associated DICOM images:

• Press the "Check All" button and then "Add to Basket"
• Press the "View My Basket" button at the bottom of the page (or "View Contents" in the left menu bar)
• Press the "Download Manager" button to open a Java applet and specify where you'd like to save your images