MRI

Marathon runners 50 years or older may face a higher than expected risk of sudden cardiovascular accidents. MR imaging with late gadolinium enhancement may help identify these athletes in time to keep them from potentially deadly episodes, according to German researchers reporting at the 2008 European Congress of Radiology in Vienna.

The relationship between gadolinium-based contrast media for MRI and nephrogenic systemic fibrosis may be more nuanced than previously thought, according to several studies presented Friday at the 2008 ECR.

Marathon runners 50 years or older may face a higher than expected risk of sudden cardiovascular accidents. MR imaging with late gadolinium enhancement may help identify these athletes in time to keep them from potentially deadly episodes, according to German researchers.

Radiologists must develop strategies for participating in the new age of imaging-based research. They need to join interdisciplinary teams, develop core imaging facilities for host institutions, involve themselves in small-animal imaging facilities, enter clinical research programs, and learn about PET and molecular imaging, which are at the core of pharmaceutical development.

Delegates caught a glimpse of the future of radiological technology at Sunday’s “ESR meets Israel” session.Israel may be relatively a small nation, with a population of just seven million, but it is making important contributions to innovation. About 900 companies are developing new pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and healthcare IT products. The majority of these businesses are relatively young and are supported by venture capital funding.

Interest in multimodality imaging shows no sign of abating. New tracers are opening up the range of clinical applications, while novel technological solutions are paving the way for yet more modality marriages, according to speakers at Sunday’s special focus session on hybrid imaging.

Days spent sitting in lecture theatres and seminar rooms, long hikes from scientific sessions to the exhibition hall with a briefcase under one arm and a weighty conference bag on the other shoulder, evenings hunched over a laptop putting the final touches to the next day’s presentation… It could be argued that attending ECR is a recipe for backache.

The controversial topic of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis drew a large crowd to a special focus session at the ECR. Delegates queued to quiz speakers about their recommendations for avoidance of the condition, ensuring a lively panel discussion.

Novel concepts and approaches are essential to speed up MRI examinations. Furthermore, pushing speed limits does not just mean doing the same things quicker -- new application areas must also be found.

Cardiac imaging is at a crossroads, according to next year’s ECR president. He’s not alone in holding such an opinion.

Marathon runners 50 years or older may face a higher than expected risk of sudden cardiovascular accidents. MR imaging with late gadolinium enhancement may help identify these athletes in time to keep them from potentially deadly episodes, according to German researchers.

Some tantalizing glimpses into future clinical applications of functional MR and PET imaging were provided at Friday’s New Horizons session.

The relationship between gadolinium-based contrast media for MRI and nephrogenic systemic fibrosis may be more nuanced than previously thought, according to several studies presented Friday at the 2008 ECR.

To the listener, jazz improvisation is an aural flight of fancy, borne aloft by a musician’s on-the-spot skill and imagination. But functional MRI results show the brain actually follows a grounded process of activation and deactivation during these spontaneous musical riffs, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University.

A keen sense of anticipation is building up among ECR 08 delegates, as the deadline approaches for the grand opening of the Technical Exhibition on Friday afternoon.

Cardiac MR codes grant a victory despite continued Medicare ban on blood flow measurement payment

3T MRI enhances knee osteoarthritis management

CMS stirs up hornet’s nest with threat to disallowan option for local Medicare coverage decisions and prohibit cardiac CT angiography for all but trial patients

Cutting CT usage and radiation without over-reliance on MRI proves to be a tricky business

SSFP serves as good start to abdominal MR exams

Sensors glean information from radiofrequency ID chips embedded in labels of contrast bottles

Functional MRI can identify brain activity patterns unique to people with autism spectrum disorders, according to a study published in February. Findings suggest that fMRI-based measurements could improve the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions.

Results of a much-anticipated study gauging tissue plasminogen activator’s impact on acute stroke patients with MRI-diagnosed penumbra mismatch suggest it is effective up to six hours after the onset of stroke and its administration could lead to improved clinical outcomes in some patients.

Several new resources offer radiologists, nephrologists, and other clinicians answers to many questions associated with nephrogenic systemic fibrosis and gadolinium-based MRI contrast.

Women with Paget’s disease of the nipple can be more assured that MRI will detect otherwise hidden malignancies, leading to opportunities for breast conserving therapy, following research from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

A cardiac MRI study measuring the risk of death and myocardial infarction from surgically induced myocardial damage bolsters a growing argument encouraging clinicians to use caution when deciding to revascularize asymptomatic heart patients.

Conventional static MR angiography techniques create high-spatial-resolution structural studies but fail to image physiological information inherent in the delivery of blood or contrast. MR scanner gradient enhancements now enable repetitive data capture over time in the attempt to depict vascular dynamics and physiology in a method similar to that routinely used with conventional catheter x-ray angiography.

Oxford University researchers have established that aortic regurgitation fraction, measured with cardiac MR, accurately singles out patients who need aortic valve replacement surgery.

With help from navigational MRI, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have assembled the largest composite map of the brain’s language sites ever to appear in the medical literature. They found far greater variability in the location of these sites than other models of language organization suggest.

MR imaging is helping radiologists and surgeons plan and monitor a novel surgical procedure developed to treat stress urinary incontinence.