Highlights of the European Society of Musculoskeletal Radiology (ESSR) annual meeting 2009

Abstract

IntroductionThe 16th annual congress of the European Society ofMusculoskeletal Radiology (ESSR) took place in Genoa,Italy, on 12 and 13 June 2009. The meeting was held jointlywith the Italian Congress of Musculoskeletal Radiology,which took place on 11 June. A successful musculoskeletalultrasound course was also run in the afternoon of 11 June,organised by the society’s ultrasound subcommittee.Asusual,themeetingcomprisedarefreshercourse,which,this year, took the hip and bony pelvis as its theme, scientificsessions, special-focus sessions and a scientific e-posterexhibition. There were 688 delegates attending the ESSRmeeting, coming from right across Europe and beyond, while703 attended the Italian Society meeting. In total 181electronic posters were exhibited, and 49 scientific presenta-tions were made. The posters and presentations covered thewhole spectrum of musculoskeletal imaging, including noveltechnologies and techniques and new perspectives on well-recognisedconditions.Theabstractsofpaperspresentedatthemeeting appeared in the June 2009 edition of SkeletalRadiology [1]. This article attempts to highlight some ofthe presentations that might be of interest.Techniques and technologyAs might be expected, a number of papers focused onapplications for 3 T magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Agroup from Munich published their first results of the use ofan isotropic three-dimensional (3D) turbo-spin echo (TSE)sequence for imaging the knee [2]. Total imaging time forthe sequence was in the order of 12.5 min, and the readersused 1 mm-thick multiplanar reconstructions for review.They found the 3D sequence images to be at leastcomparative with state-of-the-art two-dimensional (2D)sequences, but, of course, they had the advantage of beingable to undertake oblique reconstructions or review ofthinner slices. A group from Ireland and the Netherlandsshowed that 3 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) wasable to identify the double-bundle anatomy of the anteriorcruciate ligament (ACL) in 94% of patients in a retrospec-tive review of 50 patients with intact ACLs [3]; while theutility of 3 T MRI for evaluating upper limb nerve structureusing diffusion imaging and tractography was demonstratedby an Austrian group [4].In an interesting study looking at the effects of cartilageloading and unloading on T1-weighted gadolinium-enhanced(T1-Gd) relaxation times using the gadolinium-enhancedmagnetic resonance imaging of cartilage (dGEMRIC) tech-nique,workersshowedthatloadingarticularcartilagereducedthe mean T1-Gd relaxation time by approximately 50 ms [5].They emphasised that this needed to be considered when thedGEMRIC technique is to be used to assess glycosamino-glycan depletion in cartilage disease, which is also seen as areduction in T1-Gd relaxation time.A study from Switzerland looked at the use of advancedMRI techniques for the diagnosis and prediction ofoutcome in patients with Perthes’ disease [6]. They useddiffusion-weighted MRI and dynamic gadolinium-enhancedsubtraction techniques, comparing them with pinholescintigraphy. They identified increased apparent diffusioncoefficients (ADCs) in the femoral epiphyses as beingsensitive and specific for the diagnosis, but they found that