Sunrise Session

ORGANIZERS: Herbert Köstler, Dipl.-Phys. & N. Jon Shah, Ph.D.

Thursday, 27 April 2017

Skill Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Slack Channel: #e_phys_eng
Session Number: STh09

Overview
This course is designed for physicists and engineers to provide an introduction to new or emerging MR methods and applications that are gaining interest. The session provides a description of the underlying physics principles, image acquisition and reconstruction methods, pitfalls and challenges associated with quantitative susceptibility imaging and the generation of quantitative local susceptibility maps. The clinical potential of susceptibility imaging including quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) methods will be discussed.

Target Audience
Those with an interest in: 1) understanding principles of susceptibility in MRI and the effect on image contrast and phase; 2) understanding the methods and algorithms used to extract measures of local magnetic susceptibility (QSM) and the image acquisition requirements necessary for computing the quantitative measures of susceptibility; and 3) the clinical potential and utility of susceptibility and quantitative susceptibility mapping.

Educational Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
-Modify the pulse sequence or acquisition protocol that is optimal for generating susceptibility weighted images suitable for generating quantitative local magnetic susceptibility maps;
-Implement the image processing pipeline or steps needed to extract QSM images from an optimized multi-echo gradient echo image series; and
-Recognize how susceptibility imaging and QSM can be applied in a clinical setting and the clinical relevance of this emerging technique for generating novel image contrast.