Meeting Report: European Congress of Radiology

Published:

ECR 2019 Social 600More than 30,000 radiologists from around the world (a new attendance record) gathered in Vienna from February 27 through March 3 for the 2019 European Congress of Radiology (ECR).

“European radiologists are particularly interested in accelerating the development of noninvasive treatment options,” said Alessandro Napoli, MD, PhD, Professor of Radiology at La Sapienza University of Rome. “As the applications for focused ultrasound continue to expand, the interventionalists are becoming more and more familiar with its utility and broad reach.”

The event included three abstracts on focused ultrasound treatment. One novel application was for the palliative treatment of recurrent isolated gynecological tumors in the pelvis (see A-0287 Salvage treatment with image directed therapy: high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and stereotactic radiotherapy by N.M. deSouza from Sutton, United Kingdom).

In a session dedicated to developing minimally invasive local treatments for breast cancer, F. Pediconi from the University of Rome presented an overview of HIFU for this application (see A-0672 HIFU therapy).

Finally, Dr. Alessandro Napoli described the advantages of HIFU over other options for the palliative treatment of painful bone metastases in the session on musculoskeletal interventions (see A-0272 Avoiding side effects and complications by using MR guided high- intensity focused ultrasound).

The conference’s “Special Focus Sessions” also included presentations from focused ultrasound researchers in the areas of oncology, liver interventions, tremor disorders, and musculoskeletal interventions. These seven presentations are listed below:

Nonvascular Interventions in Oncology

Nonvascular Liver Interventions

Parkinson and Related Disorders

Nonvascular Musculoskeletal Interventions

The meeting’s abstract book and final program are available online.