Canon Europe, together with Clinica Creu Blanca and Olea Medical invited Canon’s European customers to participate in a MRI MSK meeting held at Barcelona FC. The main theme of the event focussed on advances in MRI for musculoskeletal imaging, especially for sports injuries. Speakers were invited from both Europe and the USA, and included radiographers, radiologists and physicists.
The first day of the two day meeting focussed on the anatomy and histology of cartilage, tendon, muscle and bone and included a presentation by the Chief Medical Officer for Barcelona FC explaining how decisions were made regarding the management of the players’ injuries based on medical imaging. As part of these sessions, delegates also enjoyed a demonstration on how to improve MSK imaging at 3T using practical tips and tricks, during which they were fascinated by the use of pig lard at the Clinica Creu Blanca site to help with image homogeneity when scanning small areas using fat suppression.
In a lecture on chondral and osteochondral pathology, Dr. Padron from Clinical Centro Madrid showed that MRI is more and more moving from a qualitative to a quantitative approach for better comparison in follow-up examinations, commenting that the new ultra short TE sequences from Canon Medical Systems give more accuracy than the previously used sequences. This was followed by Dr Cerezal from Diagnostico Medico Cantabria, Santander, with a very informative presentation on advances in hip imaging.
Commenting on the meeting, Alistair Howseman, Sales Director at Canon Medical Systems UK, said, “The meeting provided an excellent opportunity for customers and users to interact with each other. During the evening, participants were able to discuss their current studies and work over dinner at the Princesa Sofia hotel, while admiring the view of the city and Mediterranean.”
Speakers over the two-day period included Professor Gold from Stanford University, who gave two lectures, the first on functional imaging of the cartilage and quantification of the chondral change, and the second describing the measurement of the muscle velocity and inertial force using a phase contrast technique.
Other speakers presented on ‘advanced imaging techniques when imaging muscles and tendons’; ‘muscular break and follow-up’, and also diffusion tensor imaging and tractography of the internal structure of the peripheral nerves. In addition, Professor Derave of the University of Ghent gave a lecture on carnosine spectroscopy of the muscle. This indicates which muscle type is present in the individual, either explosive, or a slower muscle type, and is important information for athletes when determining how to treat injuries and also to establish which sports suits the individual, e.g., a sprinter or a long distance runner.
During a live scan, a volunteer was used to demonstrate the fusion of US and MRI. By synchronised fusion of an MRI 3D dataset during live ultrasound scans, the problem of imaging the deep structures, which is difficult for ultrasound, is resolved by the MRI data and the scan time overall is faster using this technique.
The visit to Barcelona was concluded with a visit to the nearby Camp Nou, when delegates had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the stadium and grounds of Barcelona FC.
Concluding, Alistair Howseman adds, “Both Canon and Olea Medical considered that the meeting was a great success with a lot of potential for the future.”
Photo: Group photo of the UK customers who attended the meeting
Canon Medical Systems has a carbon-zero project in place. We have calculated the carbon footprint for each of our products to include manufacturing, shipping, delivery and average hospital energy used for the standard lifetime of the equipment as follows:
3T MRI equates to 47 stoves and 141,598 litres of water