ISMRM 25th Annual Meeting & Exhibition • 22-27 April 2017 • Honolulu, HI, USA
Sunrise Educational Session: Magnetic Resonance Elastography: Brain & Breast
Sunrise Session

ORGANIZERS: Guoying Liu, Ph.D. & Joshua D. Trzasko, Ph.D.

Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Room 313A  07:00 - 07:50 Moderators: Curtis Johnson, Joshua Trzasko

Skill Level: Basic
Slack Channel: #e_crosscutting
Session Number: STu03

Overview
Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) is an emerging MRI technology that enables in vivo quantitative assessment of tissue stiffness for applications ranging from staging of liver cirrhosis to characterizing the onset of Alzheimer's disease. In this course, the history and development of MRE will be overviewed, the key enabling technologies for MRE (e.g., pulse sequences, image processing methods) will be described, and several clinical applications where MRE has proven beneficial will be discussed in detail.

Target Audience
Physicists and Clinicians with a solid basic understanding of MRI who are interested in learning about the history, technical foundations, and clinical applications of MR elastography.

Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:

-Describe the technical foundations of MR Elastography;
-Identify key clinical applications where MRE can be used; and
-Compare and contrast MRE to other quantitative MRI techniques.


07:00
 Brain
Lynne Bilston
MR elastography of the brain is an emerging technique that can noninvasively estimate brain tissue stiffness, which is usually reported as the shear modulus. It relies on using motion-encoding gradients synchronized to an externally applied vibration, to measure shear wave propagation through the brain parenchyma. This data is then analyzed, typically offline, to produce cerebral elastograms – maps of brain stiffness. In recent years, more patient-friendly vibration transducers have been developed, enabling clinical studies in human patient groups. A number of degenerative brain disorders have been observed to be associated with lower brain stiffness, although studies tend to be relatively small, and few have been independently confirmed by other research groups to date. Due to wide variation in the implementations and analysis approaches used in brain MR elastography, users must take care when interpreting brain MRE data. There is a need for large scale multi-site studies using brain MRE in clinical brain disorders.
07:25
 MR-Elastography of the Breast
Ralph Sinkus
The application of MRE to the breast as an adjunct to classical MR-Mammography is feasible in the clinical workflow. It adds valuable diagnostic information and allows to differentiate different grades of aggressivity via the ratio of viscosity to elasticity. Differentiation between benign and malignant is mainly possible via the viscosity with significant overlap in elasticity. Care must be taken in terms of sequence design as well as hardware to ensure optimal data quality, which is paramount here as lesions tend to be small.
07:50
 Adjournment
 
 

The International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for
Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.