QSM: From Principles to Clinical Application
Member-Initiated Symposium

ORGANIZERS: Ulrich Katscher, Jose Marques, Stefan Ropele

Monday, 18 June 2018

Session Number: MIS-01

Overview
This Symposium was proposed by the Electro-Magnetic Tissue Properties (SWI) study group.

“QSM: From Principles to Clinical Application” will give an overview of the recent advances on the implementation, validation and clinical research using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM). The symposium was constructed to bring together different audiences and provide a discussion platform that can be beneficial to understand: the state of the field, its main achievements and the hurdles that have to be overcome for it to be used in clinical routine with a diagnostic value.
In the first part, the presentations will be devoted to the physical processes involved in phase imaging, the computational solutions and validation work done with QSM. The second part will be dedicated to examples of clinical research questions where QSM has been applied, including the study of iron accumulation and the study of multiple sclerosis.
Each of these parts will set up the ground to two timely discussions: 1. the integration of QSM in the MR clinical product and the reasons hampering it; 2. the (un)met needs of QSM to become a regular tool of clinical research and diagnostic imaging.
These round tables will have the participation of major MR vendors and (neuro)radiologists.
We believe this is a format complementary to what is offered in typical ISMRM educational or scientific sessions. While it will have a review flavor in its introductory part, its main focus is on translation. For translation to take place, a platform where the different parties are present is essential.

Target Audience
Scientists, engineers, clinical researchers and neuro-radiologists interested in understanding, developing and applying QSM in the brain.

Educational Objectives
As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:
- Identify which biophysical tissue properties can influence the maps obtained with Susceptibility Mapping and how they have been validated;
- Recognize what are the main difficulties (and recent developments) to generate high quality susceptibility maps without human intervention;
- Define the roles of QSM in clinical research, segmentation of deep gray matter structures and in the study of multiple sclerosis; and
- Predict what is needed for a technique to be of diagnostic imaging value and what barriers still need to be overcome by QSM.