Sophia Antipolis 13 April 2016: Record attendance is expected at Europe’s leading cardiovascular magnetic resonance meeting, to be held 12 to 14 May in Florence, Italy, at the Palazzo dei Congressi.
EuroCMR is the largest and most important cardiovascular magnetic resonance, or CMR, event in Europe. It is the annual CMR conference of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The scientific programme is available here.
More than 500 delegates are anticipated to attend and a record number of abstracts have been submitted for presentation. Professor Sven Plein, chair of the EACVI’s CMR Section, said: “The use of CMR as a safe, accurate and very versatile diagnostic tool continues to expand rapidly. This is now the largest clinical CMR meeting in Europe and is becoming an increasingly popular place to present new science and hear the latest developments in the field. This is the event for journalists to get up-to-date on CMR.”
The hot topic of parametric mapping by CMR will be covered by multiple abstracts and a number of talks including pro and contra sessions on whether it is ready for clinical use. Parametric mapping provides quantitative parameters for different diseased and non-diseased cardiac tissues. It also allows visualisation of subtle changes in the myocardium such as fibrosis.
“Mapping heralds a new era in CMR,” said Professor Holger Thiele, programme chair of EuroCMR. “It is comparable to the Hounsfield units in computed tomography (CT) imaging and is an important step forward for quantification in CMR.”
The world famous pathologist Dr Christina Basso will show anatomical specimens and CMR images of cardiac pathologies for the first time during EuroCMR. A special course on fluidodynamic modeling will be led by Dr Philip Kilner demonstrating fluid and flow experiments and the implications for CMR. Professor Albert van Rossum will give the key note lecture on the role of CMR in the two-edged sword of reperfusion in myocardial infarction.
Cutting edge science will be revealed in the original scientific abstracts. A rapid fire abstract session has been introduced this year which will see the best science presented orally within a few minutes.
EuroCMR covers the full spectrum of the clinical application of CMR from congenital heart disease to all adult cardiac diseases. This is reflected in the congress theme "current clinical application of CMR". A session on advanced technologies in congenital heart disease will explore when to use real-time imaging and how 3D printing can help diagnosis and management planning. Another session is devoted to the use of CMR to plan and guide procedures such as cardiac device implantation and ablation of atrial fibrillation.
Professor Thiele said: “Leaders in the field will discuss state of the art clinical applications of CMR and release cutting edge findings from scientific research.”
Controversial issues in CMR will be tackled head on and members of the press will get both sides of the story. A symposium on the use of contrast agents in CMR will ask whether CMR causes DNA damage. The role of CMR in evaluating the cardiovascular effects of recreational drugs will also be debated.
Professor Plein said: “Experts will separate myth from fact and tell members of the press what is known on several contentious issues.”
A new face-off session will be held in which post-processing software companies battle to show the performance of their software for quantification. Delegates’ knowledge will be tested in the CMR World Cup Competition in which expert teams, symbolically representing England and Germany 50 years after the famous world cup final between the two nations, will be asked difficult and trivia questions related to CMR in a highly entertaining showdown.
Professor Thiele said: “EuroCMR is the top CMR event in Europe. Journalists should register now to discover the clinical and scientific advances in this fast moving field. More than 90 international speakers will tell us what is new during 2.5 days and over 40 sessions.”
ENDS
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