ISMRM SCIENTIFIC WORKSHOP ~ 11-14 October 2012
 

Perfusion MRI: Standardization, Beyond CBF & Everyday Clinical Applications
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
 

OVERVIEW
The most prominent perfusion MRI techniques, i.e. arterial spin labeling and dynamic susceptibility contrast MRI, provide at the moment quality that justifies clinical application of these techniques. A significant increase in use in standard clinical care of these techniques has been evident in the last years. This raises three questions:
  • Standardization of MR perfusion techniques – To facilitate the clinical use of perfusion MRI, standardization of acquisition and post-processing techniques is of the highest importance. Based on the discussions during this workshop, a white paper on the use of perfusion MRI will be drafted;
  • Clinical interpretation – How should perfusion MRI be incorporated in the clinical decision making and what are the perfusion MRI characteristics of different diseases; and
  • Beyond cerebral blood flow – With the clinical acceptance of cerebral blood flow measurements, the challenge for MR physicist will be to infer more diverse information of the microvasculature based on perfusion techniques, like oxygenation, microvascular transit time imaging, flow heterogeneity, etc.
 

TARGET AUDIENCE
This workshop aims to attract a mixed audience of MDs and PhDs. It specifically aims to attract MDs who have little experience in the application of perfusion MRI in their clinical program, but who wants to learn how to interpret these scans. Furthermore, PhDs who are doing research on perfusion MRI will be interested, because of the focus on the current state-of-art techniques, the discussion on white paper on perfusion standardization and the focus on the development of new techniques that go beyond CBF-measurements.
 

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
As a result of participation in this activity, participants should be able to:
  • Interpret perfusion images of all main perfusion MRI techniques;
  • Recognize how pathology can influence perfusion values of all main perfusion MRI techniques;
  • Recognize how conditions of the microvasculature relate to cerebral blood flow;
  • Infer more information on the microvascular bed from arterial spin labeling methods;
  • Appraise the advantages and disadvantages of perfusion based fMRI relative to standard BOLD fMRI; and
  • Implement higher resolution readout modules in their perfusion protocols.