Daily Bulletin 2016

RSNA/AAPM Symposium Explores Precision Medicine

Thursday, Dec. 01, 2016

Maryellen L. Giger, PhD

Maryellen L. Giger, PhD

Daniel C. Sullivan, MD

Daniel C. Sullivan, MD

In this symposium presented in conjunction with the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), Maryellen L. Giger, PhD, and Daniel C. Sullivan, MD, will help radiologists and medical physicists further understand what their roles will be within the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI).

Dr. Giger is the A.N. Pritzker Professor of Radiology, the Committee on Medical Physics, and the College at the University of Chicago (UC). A pioneer in the development of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), Dr. Giger has conducted research on CAD and quantitative radiomics in the areas of breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer and bone diseases for 30 years. Her research in computational image-based analyses of breast cancer for risk assessment, diagnosis, prognosis and response to therapy has yielded various translated components, and she is now using these image-based phenotypes in radiomics-genomics association studies for cancer discovery and implementation through the development of digital virtual biopsies.

A past president of AAPM, Dr. Giger is a former RSNA third vice president and served as chair of the RSNA Research & Education (R&E) Foundation Research Study Section. She is a member of RSNA's Public Information Advisors Network. Dr. Giger is a PI in the NCI Quantitative Imaging Network and co-leader of the TCGA Breast Phenotype Research Group.

Dr. Sullivan is professor emeritus at the Department of Radiology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. His areas of clinical and research expertise are in nuclear medicine and oncologic imaging, in particular focusing on improving the use of imaging as a biomarker in clinical trials and facilitating translational research involving new and established imaging methods. While at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) from 1997 to 2007, Dr. Sullivan had key roles in designing and implementing the National Lung Screening Trial and the Digital Mammography Imaging Screening Trial.

Dr. Sullivan founded and chaired RSNA's Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance (QIBA), and served as RSNA science advisor from 2007 to 2015. He currently serves as the QIBA external relations liaison. In 2014, he was appointed to a three-year term on the National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at National Institutes of Health.

Question of the Day:

Is the ALARA principle followed for modalities like ultrasound that do not expose patients to electromagnetic radiation?

Tip of the day:

Reducing the voxel size of an isotropic MRI acquisition will result in higher spatial resolution at the cost of reduced signal-to-noise.

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