Foundations of CMR – Level I SCMR Workshop Recap

Over 90 healthcare professionals gathered in Rockville, MD on December 2nd and 3rd for the first SCMR Foundations of CMR Level I Workshop. The 2-day workshop began with opening remarks from Patricia Bandettini who provided an overview on the clinical value of CMR and the topics to be discussed over the course of the workshop.

The theme of the morning sessions was “what CMR can tell me” about patients and emphasized the value of CMR in providing patient insight on cardiovascular structure, function, flow, myocardial perfusion, viability, fibrosis, and edema. The morning closed with an important focus on MRI safety and basics. One of the highlights of the workshop was the case presentations and the ability for attendees to experience real-life training on CMR software workstations (provided by Circle Cardiovascular Imaging and Neosoft).

On day one, attendees cycled through three separate rooms to view case presentations. The late morning presentations covered left and right ventricular volumes and function, blood flow using phase contrast, and tissue character applications. Following the cases was a lunch time presentation on the Medis Medical Imaging Systems Suite.

The afternoon sessions focused on the different CMR applications and covered stress testing, with sessions such as: Incorporating CMR into the Management of the Patient with Myocardial Infarction, CMR in the Evaluation and Management of Nonischemic Cardiomyopathies, Advances in Imaging Inherited Cardiomyopathies: The Role of CMR, Valvular Disease: What Can CMR Tell Me That Echo Can’t?, and MR Angiography sponsored by Guerbet. Day one concluded after another round of case presentations covering cardiomyopathies cases, stress testing cases, and late gadolinium enhancement cases. All attendees, faculty and sponsors enjoyed some networking time during the evening reception.

Day two began with an update and understanding of gadolinium-based contrast agents, supported by Bayer Healthcare. Next, Patricia Bandettini recapped day one and provided an overview of day two. The morning sessions covered CMR applications in congenital heart disease, cardio-oncology and the evaluation of cardiac masses. After a networking break, the morning sessions continued: Pericardial Constriction: Why CMR Should Be Considered in Every Case in Addition to Echocardiography, The Management of Aortic and Peripheral Vascular Disease: The Role of CMR, The Value of CMR for the Electrophysiologist, and CMR: A Cost-effective Tool for Evaluating Patients with Cardiovascular Disease.

The lunchtime presentation covered the Arterys Cardiac MRI suite. The final round of case presentations included cardiac masses/pericardial, aorta/valve and congenital heart disease cases. The last hour of the workshop tested and integrated all that was learned over the two days with instruction on how to put that knowledge into practice. The immediate feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive and there are early plans for additional Level I workshops in the future.

Thanks again to Patricia Bandettini, the invited faculty and sponsors for your contribution to the Society.

Faculty

Children’s National Medical Center: Yu-Hin Loke, Laura Olivieri
Food and Drug Administration: Vasum Peiris
Georgetown University School of Medicine: Barbara Srichai-Parsia, Andrew Choi
Lancaster General Health: Ron Jacob
Medstar Franklin Square and Union Memorial Hospital: Sriram Padmanabhan
National Institutes of Health: Andrew Arai, W. Patricia Bandettini, Marcus Chen, Sujata Shanbhag
The Ohio State University: Orlando Simonetti University of Maryland: Jean Jeudy
University of Pennsylvania Medical Center: Victor Ferrari
University of Virginia Health System: Michael Salerno
Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center: John Grizzard
Washington DC Veterans Affairs: Federico Mordini
Washington Hospital Center: Ana Barac, Andrew Ertel, Gaby Weissman