Key Highlights From the Annual Symposium of the American Society of Spine Radiology

While magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion is not exactly new, Kevin J. Abrams, MD, says the potential of dynamic susceptibility contrast with MR perfusion is exciting as it “allows you to hopefully differentiate active spine disease versus treated spine disease in a patient who has metastatic cancer.”

This was just one of the takeaways Dr. Abrams had after attending the 25th Annual Symposium of the American Society of Spine Radiology (ASSR). In a recent video interview with Diagnostic Imaging, Dr. Abrams also praised discussions of imaging for spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH). In addition to learning more about the risk of superficial siderosis in patients with this condition, he noted strong lectures on the use of CT myelography and digital subtraction myelography to diagnose different types of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leaks associated with SIH.

Dr. Abrams said another highlight talk was a lecture on the use of dual-energy CT to differentiate between acute and chronic vertebral fractures. He added that he started to incorporate this modality more in his practice shortly after attending the ASSR conference. The combination of artificial intelligence and augmented reality, as discussed at the ASSR meeting, has the potential to supplant procedure videos in the training of radiologists as it “feels like you’re doing the procedure before you do the procedure,” noted Dr. Abrams, the chief of radiology at Baptist Hospital of Miami, and a clinical associate professor of radiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Medicine at Florida International University.

For additional insights from Dr. Abrams about the ASSR conference, watch the video below: