Marko Ivancevic Wins W.S. Moore Young Investigator Award

ISMRM 2003 - Toronto, Canada, 10-16 July 2003
 

ISMRM 2003 winds down
Newsflash 16/7/03, by Michael Steckner
The booths are closed, posters are rapidly vanishing,
the crowds are thinning out, suits are disappearing,
brains are overloaded and the conference
is winding down on its final half day.
While a successful conference, I would estimate
that one poster in 10-20 was missing and one
speaker in 10-20 was not present. (Most unfortunately,
very few people attending their posters during
the appointed time.) But on the plus side, lots of
people visited our booth and the message was
“you have the best image quality”.
For anyone who saw the unbelievably bad images
shown from the experimental 32 channel GE system
at Beth Israel during the GE lunchtime symposium,
that image quality statement was especially
easy to understand. (Huge ripples down the side of
the coronal images, subcutaneous bright body fat
on the axial slices with black lines cutting through,
significant signal intensity variations within the bladder
from through the axial slices, and reports of an
aliased kidney where there ain’t supposed to be
kidney. While the equipment was installed just days
before ISMRM, I would not have expected such
artifacts just because there are more channels.)
As well, we at Philips should celebrate the awarding
of the W.S. Moore Young Investigator Award for
best Scientific Paper to Marko Ivancevic at the
Geneva University Hospital for his work on
“Correction of the Inflow Effect on Fast GRE MR
Sequence for Perfusion Imaging” and co-authored
by our own David Foxall.
But on to Wednesday's events. I attended the
emerging body applications presentations, for
which both moderators were absent... Our Dr.
Takehara gave an interesting presentation on his
small/large research demonstrating bowel motility
analysis (similar to his Antwerp Radiology Network
Meeting presentation) followed by Dr. Lauenstein
(Siemens equipment) who filled in for Dr. Debatin
and gave an interesting presentation on his virtual
colonography work.
He discussed the merits and challenges of bright vs
dark lumen colonography techniques and how his
emerging work on the application of truefisp, which
reduces motion artifacts and eliminates the need
for contrast agents, results in a cheaper and better
examinations.

Dr. Lauenstein also showed the results of his
patient surveys to determine what phases of the
colonography process were least tolerated. As
would be expected, it’s the preparation process that
causes the most problems. Once the actually
colonoscopy or colonography examination starts,
patient acceptance is reasonable and at comparable levels.
Hence, the continued search by Dr. Lauenstein and
other presenters at the conference for meal preparation
methods that ease the preparation phase for
the patient. Unfortunately, our Dr. Kuhl was not able
to give her Breast presentation. Too bad they did
not re-schedule her earlier in the week while she
was still at the conference.
The final plenary session, devoted to the tumour
microenvironment, was up to the high standards of
the earlier plenary sessions.
Dr. Dewhirst gave a presentation on tumour pathophysiology
mechanism, concentrating on the role of
hypoxia. Hypoxia makes the tumour more resistant
to treatment, is an indicator of outcome, and can
even play a role in gene modification which in turn
modifies tumour behaviour. Part of the scientific
challenge arises from the fact that hypoxia levels in
a tumour can very rapidly. Now if only we could figure
out ways to image PO2.
Dr. Giles followed by giving a presentation on his
MRI, MRS studies of tumour pathophysiology, concentrating
on the role of glucose metabolism and
thus tying in why PET studies are important and
how glucose studies are enjoying a renaissance as
a result of booming PET/CT sales.
Dr. Giles also spoke briefly about how flourine
imaging can also be used to image oxygenation
levels directly, thus addressing the wish of the first
presentation. He also spoke about the challenges
of perfusion measurements in tumours and how
regional variations within a single tumour can be
significant. He also discussed the role of pH within
the tumour environment and how low pH stimulates
tumour growth and how alkalization of tumours can
cause shrinkage.
The plenary session was completed with a presentation
by Dr. Gallez on EPR studies of tumour oxygenation,
and how it is possible to image oxygen
level through changes in T2, thus also tying into the
wishes of the first speaker.
Compliments to the ISMRM committees for overcoming
the significant obstacles and hosting an
excellent conference.
 

The International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) a non-profit professional
association devoted to furthering the development and application of magnetic resonance techniques in
medicine and biology. The Society holds annual scientific meetings and sponsors other major educational
and scientific workshops.

Marko Ivancevic

imarko@freesurf.ch