RSNA program chair highlights focus of radiation exposure, cardiac imaging
CHICAGO—As the 94th annual meeting of Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) opened this morning to overcast skies, misty rain and the possibility of snow, RSNA Scientific Program Committee Chair Robert Quencer, MD, highlights several foci of this year’s conference for Health Imaging News.

For the scientific presentations, the RSNA program committee received 10,878 abstracts for consideration—7,052 for scientific presentations and 3,826 for education exhibits. Over the summer, the committee and its subcommittees selected 1,803 abstracts as scientific papers and 729 as scientific posters. A separate committee accepted 1,606 abstracts for education exhibits.

Quencer, chair of radiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, noted that radiation exposure is “always a concern because of the prevalence multi-slice CT scanners, particularly in pediatrics.” In fact, RSNA Pediatric Radiology Subcommittee Chair Lane F. Donnelly, MD, said that attendees “can look forward to important presentations on CT dose, helical MR, diffusion tensor imaging for body applications and pediatric interventional radiology.”

Among the other trends of the RSNA program, Quencer notes “the emergence and the continued development of cardiac CT angiography (CTA),” represented in presentations focusing on radiation dose and technique development. The subcommittee members identified abstracts in two specific areas: early population studies about clinical acceptance and applications of cardiac CT, as well as the use of dual-source CT, according to Andre J. Duerinckx, MD, PhD, RSNA cardiac radiology subcommittee chair.

Other cardiac CT sessions will cover plaque imaging, quantitative cardiac radiology and comparisons with echocardiography and nuclear stress testing. Quencer specifically focused on this specialty of cardiac CT as a major trend in imaging and patient care because “of the huge number of patients nationwide for whom cardiac MR, cardiac CT and cardiac CTA will impact.”

Virtual colonoscopy is another standout of this year’s RSNA. Nanotechnology as the future of radiology is the focus of the Eugene P. Pendergrass New Horizons Lecture, presented by Michael Welch, PhD, from the Mallikrodt Institute of Radiology Washington University, School of Medicine St. Louis, on Monday afternoon. Several scientific and focus sessions also will focus on quantitative imaging, structured reporting and molecular imaging, “which should provide a more quantitative basis to the reports.”

“RSNA is a meeting unlike any other radiology meeting because of the range of reasons that people attend, and the surplus of topics and exhibits that it offers to attendees,” Quencer concluded.

To access times and locations of educational sessions, please visit RSNA.org.

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