Automated CLARITY Scoring

Upload a pre-operative, contrast-enhanced abdominal CT (one DICOM study folder — one imaging session) that includes the kidneys. We email you a CLARITY score, typically within about a week. The site is here to make that workflow straightforward for research groups and clinicians evaluating the score on their imaging—this channel itself is still early, not a rolled-out hospital product.

Protected health information (PHI)

This service is not a HIPAA-compliant environment. Do not upload identifiable patient data unless you are explicitly permitted under your institution's policies and applicable law. If you are unsure, use de-identified images or run our pipeline on your own secure systems instead (see below).

This path is for a small number of cases—to pilot the workflow, demo the technology, and let clinicians explore CLARITY on real imaging (and, when appropriate, patients with their care team). To process a large batch or keep everything on your infrastructure, use our containerized code: github.com/AIM-HI-Lab/clarity-inference-pipeline.

Submit a case

Before you upload

By uploading, you confirm you may share these images for this purpose and you consent to our storing, processing, and emailing your result to the address you provide. See the PHI notice above and the footer for compliance context.

Choose your DICOM study folder (one imaging session — see guidance below), then enter your details and submit. A submission record is created only when you start the DICOM transfer.

We send CLARITY results to this address.

Use a short label you will recognize (for example, Case-001). Avoid patient names if you want to stay de-identified.

Upload guidance

Which folder to select — study, not patient

Select a study folder—one imaging session for one patient (one visit date, one scanner run). Do not select the patient-level folder, which may contain years of scans across multiple dates; uploading it wastes processing time and may score the wrong scan.

Typical layout on a workstation or PACS export:

PatientSmith_J/ ← ❌ patient folder — do not select
  2024-01-15_PreOp_AbdCT/ ← ✓ study folder — select this
    Series_1_Axial/ ← .dcm files are inside series subfolders
    Series_2_Coronal/

The pipeline scans all series inside the study folder recursively, filters out scouts, localizers, and non-CT objects, and selects the best series automatically. You do not need to manually identify the correct series.

What CT phase to use

Use a pre-operative, contrast-enhanced abdominal CT that clearly shows both kidneys and the renal mass. The model performs best in the corticomedullary phase (30–60 s post-contrast) or nephrographic phase (80–120 s post-contrast)—both provide the kidney-tumor contrast needed for automated segmentation and scoring.

Do not use: unenhanced (non-contrast) CT only, delayed excretory phase only, post-operative scans, or MRI. If the only available CT lacks contrast or is post-operative, the pipeline may return no score or flag the scan. The pipeline includes an automatic phase check; if an incorrect phase is detected it will note this in the result.

Uploading from a CD or DVD

Insert the disc and open it as a folder. Look for a subfolder named DICOM, IMAGES, DICOM_ROOT, or similar— select that subfolder, not the disc root. The disc root usually also contains viewer software (DCMVWR, AUTORUN.INF) that you do not need and which will be skipped automatically.

Files without .dcm extensions: Many hospital CD burns store DICOM files with names like IM-0001-0001 or 00000001 (no extension). This portal currently requires .dcm extensions. If the folder summary shows "no .dcm files found" after selecting the CD folder, your disc uses extensionless files. In that case, either rename them (add .dcm to all files in the DICOM subfolder) or use our command-line pipeline, which handles both formats natively.

File size and upload limits

A typical single-study abdominal CT is 150–600 MB. This portal accepts up to 3072 MB (3.0 GB) per submission. If your folder exceeds this, you are likely selecting a patient-level folder with multiple studies— select one study (one date) instead. Individual DICOM files must be under 512 MB (well within normal slice sizes), and a submission may contain at most 5000 DICOM files.

What is CLARITY?

CLARITY is a CT-derived renal tumor complexity marker. It outputs a continuous value from 0 to 1 reflecting imaging patterns associated with nephron-sparing complexity. Lower values align with less complex anatomy; higher values with patterns associated with more complex cases and radical-nephrectomy-like anatomy.

CLARITY is based on retrospective research. Use it alongside the rest of the chart and imaging—not as a stand-alone decision tool.