SonoSite ® – World leader <strong>and</strong> specialist<strong>in</strong> h<strong>and</strong>-carried ultrasound.M-Turbo ®S-Series NanoMaxx ®How small mach<strong>in</strong>es are mak<strong>in</strong>ga big impact <strong>in</strong> healthcare• Driv<strong>in</strong>g po<strong>in</strong>t-<strong>of</strong>-care visualisation <strong>in</strong>to medic<strong>in</strong>e• Proprietary ultrasound m<strong>in</strong>iaturisation technology• Proven reliability – 5-Year St<strong>and</strong>ard Warranty• Advanced imag<strong>in</strong>g technologies across all products• Proven durability – capability to withst<strong>and</strong> a 1 metredrop onto hard surfaces• Fluid resistant user <strong>in</strong>terface for easy clean<strong>in</strong>g<strong>and</strong> dis<strong>in</strong>fection• Connectivity – wired or wireless transfer <strong>of</strong> imagedata, DICOM ® , USB or SiteL<strong>in</strong>k See how versatile ultrasound can be, visitwww.sonosite.com, call 01462 444 800 to speakto a customer service representative or email:ukresponse@sonosite.com.World leader <strong>and</strong> specialist <strong>in</strong> h<strong>and</strong>-carried ultrasound.SonoSite, the SonoSite logo, <strong>and</strong> other trademarks not owned by third partiesare registered or unregistered <strong>in</strong>tellectual property <strong>of</strong> SonoSite, Inc.©2011 SonoSite, Inc. All rights reserved. Subject to change. 04/11ImSimQAQA s<strong>of</strong>tware for advanced RTAtlas-based auto-contour<strong>in</strong>g, deformable imageregistration, <strong>and</strong> adaptive RT are grow<strong>in</strong>g fast.How do you use hard phantoms to test thesesystems? Answer: You can’t.ImSimQA is an essential s<strong>of</strong>tware toolkit thatgenerates DICOM test images to validate cl<strong>in</strong>icals<strong>of</strong>tware systems, <strong>and</strong> then runs quantitativeanalyses to measure results.DICOM image data is created from a library <strong>of</strong>phantoms <strong>and</strong> imported images <strong>of</strong> any DICOM-3modality. Images can be transformed, deformed,contrast enhanced <strong>and</strong> DICOM edited tocreate an <strong>in</strong>f<strong>in</strong>ite range <strong>of</strong> test data.www.osl.uk.com enquiry@osl.uk.com +44 (0)1743 46269432 | MARCH <strong>2013</strong> | SCOPE
MEETING REPORTSMELBOURNE,AUSTRALIA4th–10th May2012‘THE 20TH ANNUAL MEETING ANDEXHIBITION OF THE ISMRMVICTORIA BULL IPEM travel bursary recipientFIGURE 1. The Melbourne Convention Centre (left) <strong>and</strong> its ma<strong>in</strong> auditorium (right)Despite my PhD project be<strong>in</strong>g primarilyultrasound based, I was lucky enoughto have an abstract accepted for anoral presentation at this prestigious MRIconference <strong>in</strong> Melbourne, Australia. It was afantastic opportunity for me to not only learna lot more about the vast subject <strong>of</strong> MRI, butalso to help represent my niche subject <strong>of</strong>MRI-guided focused ultrasound surgery(MRgFUS). The theme <strong>of</strong> this year’s meet<strong>in</strong>gwas ‘Adapt<strong>in</strong>g MR <strong>in</strong> a chang<strong>in</strong>g world’ <strong>and</strong>was ma<strong>in</strong>ly geared towards new <strong>and</strong>emerg<strong>in</strong>g applications <strong>of</strong> MRI <strong>in</strong> medic<strong>in</strong>e.As such, the subject <strong>of</strong> MRgFUS fitted <strong>in</strong> wellwith the wide array <strong>of</strong> other topics be<strong>in</strong>gpresented.The meet<strong>in</strong>g began with two educationaldays, which were <strong>in</strong>valuable for me as theycentred around specific themes <strong>and</strong> physicalpr<strong>in</strong>ciples <strong>of</strong> MR. Follow<strong>in</strong>g these, the ma<strong>in</strong>part <strong>of</strong> the conference comprised five fulldays with 11 parallel sessions <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g‘sunrise’ educational sessions for the earlybirds among us, plenary talks, researchpresentations, posters <strong>and</strong> e-posters. A total<strong>of</strong> 4,603 delegates attended the conference.There were 744 oral scientific presentationsalong with 424 <strong>in</strong>vited educational talks.Posters were split <strong>in</strong>to two types, traditional<strong>and</strong> e-posters, where the present<strong>in</strong>g authorsubmitted a PowerPo<strong>in</strong>t presentation whichwas shown on a dedicated computer <strong>in</strong> thema<strong>in</strong> exhibition hall. The total number <strong>of</strong>posters <strong>of</strong> these types was 1,959 (traditional)<strong>and</strong> 1,753 (electronic). Sixty companies hadst<strong>and</strong>s at the exhibition, br<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g 970employees <strong>in</strong> total.“One <strong>of</strong> the majordrawbacks <strong>of</strong> MRI as apractical imag<strong>in</strong>g tool isthe lengthy scan times“Plenary sessionsPlenary sessions took place <strong>in</strong> the huge ma<strong>in</strong>auditorium <strong>of</strong> the Melbourne ConventionCentre (figure 1). The morn<strong>in</strong>g plenarysession on Monday <strong>in</strong>troduced the theme <strong>of</strong>compressed sens<strong>in</strong>g, which was a majorplayer <strong>in</strong> the research sessions throughoutthe week. Such a complex subject required aclear <strong>and</strong> engag<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>troduction, which wasprovided by David Donoho (StanfordUniversity, California, USA). He expla<strong>in</strong>edthat one <strong>of</strong> the major drawbacks <strong>of</strong> MRI as apractical imag<strong>in</strong>g tool is the lengthy scantimes required, <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>troduced compressedsens<strong>in</strong>g as a viable solution to this problem.As we are reach<strong>in</strong>g the limits <strong>of</strong> ourcapability to process data more quickly, thistechnique was developed <strong>in</strong> a move towardsreduc<strong>in</strong>g the amount <strong>of</strong> data <strong>in</strong>itiallyacquired, whilst reta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g sufficient imagequality <strong>in</strong> the f<strong>in</strong>al image for diagnosis <strong>of</strong>disease. Nyquist theory has previouslydef<strong>in</strong>ed the m<strong>in</strong>imum sampl<strong>in</strong>g rate <strong>of</strong> data.However it has now been shown that byundersampl<strong>in</strong>g frequency space <strong>in</strong> an<strong>in</strong>coherent manner, <strong>and</strong> then us<strong>in</strong>gsophisticated non-l<strong>in</strong>ear reconstructionmethods, it is feasible to vastly reduce theamount <strong>of</strong> data acquired, produc<strong>in</strong>g an<strong>in</strong>herently compressed image which is <strong>of</strong>perfectly adequate quality. Whereasundersampl<strong>in</strong>g methods used currently<strong>of</strong>ten <strong>in</strong>troduce alias<strong>in</strong>g artefacts, byundersampl<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>coherently, the alias<strong>in</strong>geffectively becomes noise. Laterpresentations <strong>in</strong> this session revealed thevast array <strong>of</strong> different sampl<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong>reconstruction methods be<strong>in</strong>g employed <strong>in</strong>compressed sens<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>and</strong> a number <strong>of</strong>applications were demonstrated, particularly<strong>in</strong> dynamic contrast enhanced imag<strong>in</strong>g,cardiac imag<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> angiography wherehigh frame rates are <strong>of</strong> great advantage.Allison Payne (University <strong>of</strong> Utah, USA)presented an MR-guided high <strong>in</strong>tensityfocussed ultrasound (MRgHIFU) system fortreat<strong>in</strong>g patients with breast cancer. 1MRgHIFU works on the pr<strong>in</strong>ciple that afocussed ultrasound beam will deposit heatat a precise location with<strong>in</strong> the body us<strong>in</strong>g anextracorporeal device. It is a non-<strong>in</strong>vasivetreatment where temperatures <strong>in</strong> the focalregion are sufficient to cause rapid cell death ‰SCOPE | MARCH <strong>2013</strong> | 33
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