Expansion plans for company as high-tech system brings hope to cancer sufferers

Dr Olga Kubassova's company, Image Analysis, aims to give medical staff a "window of opportunity" to treat arthritis.

It's hoped the same system, which revolves around producing computer software for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment, could also help doctors to spot breast cancer in its early stages. As a result, more cancer sufferers could survive.

Ms Kubassova, who was born in Ust-Kamenogorsk in Kazakhstan, came to study at Leeds University in 2004, after successfully applying for the Dorothy Hodgkins Postgraduate Award, a scholarship that enables outstanding researchers from overseas to study in Britain.

Before she arrived in Britain, Ms Kubassova had taken a BsC and an MSc in applied mathematics and mechanics at St Petersburg State University in Russia. She also holds a masters degree in computer science from the Finnish university of Lappeenranta.

Image Analysis was founded in 2007, and, with help from a micro grant from Yorkshire Forward, developed its first product which analyses data from patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The company, which is based in Saltaire, near Bradford, produces software which revolves around a complex arithmetical procedure, or logarithm.

The software enables doctors to establish quickly whether a patient is suffering from arthritis and reduces the chance of human error.

While an X-ray will only show bones, an MRI scan analyses the tissue around them. The appeal of the software produced by Image Analysis is that it can produce high quality data on cheaper low-field MRI scanners.

Using the software's logarithms, large amounts of data can be processed in a matter of minutes, which means patients at risk from developing arthritis can be spotted quickly.

Ms Kubassova said: "We realised that rheumatology is all about inflammation around the joint and this has the same, or a similar nature, to cancerous tissue development.

"It's very difficult to identify all the tumours. Sometimes, due to tiredness, you can misdiagnose or fail to see a tumour.

"What the software is capable of doing is automatically detecting the tumours with an image and bringing it to the attention of the clinician, who can decide whether it is malignant or benign. We can help them get that decision right.

"At the moment we are looking at breast cancer, but we hope to look at other cancers.

"We started work with Hull Royal Infirmary, the Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Parker Institute in Denmark."

Olga Hatsiopoulou, a consultant radiologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We are in the early stages of working with Image Analysis on a breast MRI computer-aided detection algorithm with favourable preliminary results. Hopefully, this is a step in the direction of improving outcomes for patients with breast cancer."

Ms Kubassova added: "The quicker you detect any disease, no matter what it is, you provide patients with the possibility of living a relatively normal life. It's a choice between disability and a normal lifestyle.

"Apart from saving patients' lives, it's reducing radiologists' stress levels. If the bulk of the data can be processed automatically through the software, they can focus on the most difficult cases.

"They can spend more time talking to patients rather than looking at the images."

At a conservative estimate – based on saving one radiographer an hour's work a day – Ms Kubassova anticipates the system could reduce NHS spending by thousands of pounds.

She added: "A year ago, I was on my own. We now have three full-time employees. We have another one joining us in September. We have three part-time staff who are based all over the world."

Image Analysis is in talks with an Italian-based maker of MRI equipment to integrate its software with its hardware equipment.

She added: "We are also talking to Swedish and Finish manufacturers. It's at an early stage but they are very interested.

"Every day when I close the office door, I wish we had 50 people, because there is enough work for them.

"Next year, we are looking to get really good sales and operational managers and directors in place, and then expand research and development.

"In a couple of years, we may have 20 people, and in three or four years, we could have 50 people."

Ms Kubassova paid tribute to regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, which is being scrapped by the coalition Government as part of public sector spending cuts.

She said: "If Yorkshire Forward wasn't here, we wouldn't exist. They really believed this idea had legs."

She said the growth of Image Analysis, which won the university spin-out category in last year's Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards, was a testament to the quality of the region's workforce.

She added: "Sometimes the right attitude is more important than the skills set. Yorkshire people are very stubborn. If they decide to do something, they don't quit. In a small business, that is incredibly important."