The Road to Consensus in Diffusion MRI: How Far Are We?
Member-Initiated Symposium

ORGANIZERS: Andrada Ianus, Els Fieremans, Claire Mulcahy

Wednesday, 15 May 2019

Session Number: MIS-15

Overview
This Symposium was proposed by the Diffusion study group.

This symposium will provide a forum for clinicians and diffusion MR scientists to engage in a discussion about best practices for specific applications of diffusion MRI (dMRI). This is a timely idea which addresses an increasing clinical demand for guidelines and has been enthusiastically received by the dMRI community as evidenced in the recent Diffusion Study Group survey in which 97% of participants (112/116) think it is possible to reach consensus on best practices for a certain topic/application.

The overall aim is to facilitate a discussion between clinicians and diffusion researchers regarding techniques and/or applications (as indicated by the DSG survey) where guidelines (e.g. in terms of acquisition, post-processing, analysis) can be provided to bridge the gap between the clinical need and research developments, a complementary topic to the scientific sessions.

The session is designed to foster dialogue between the scientific and clinical communities that will improve standard clinical practice and move the field forward, ultimately benefiting patient care.

Target Audience
Clinicians, MR technologists/radiographers, physicists/scientists/diffusion experts, MR vendors, industry partners, and non-experts in dMRI.

Educational Objectives
As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:
- Describe state-of-the-art acquisition and processing methods for clinical diffusion MRI in the brain;
- Develop standardised protocols for DTI in brain;
- Identify best practices for diffusion acquisition in DKI and tractography; and
- Identify best practices for diffusion MRI data post-processing.