2020-12-21 Newsletter

Dear renalMRI - PARENCHIMA Team!

2020 was in many ways a challenging year. Especially networking and communication tools had to be adapted fast and accordingly. However, with great challenges come great opportunities. In this context, we are pleased to inform you about the following exciting news.

Extension of our COST action was approved

Our COST action has been approved for a six month extension. This will give us the framework to further spread our efforts to promote renal MRI biomarkers and to transform our open network for future challenges. The main focus for our final year, apart from the meeting in Lisbon, will be an initiative aiming to develop new research collaborations across national borders. More about this soon.

4th international renal MRI meeting in Lisbon

We are excited to inform you that we are currently working on the upcoming 4th international renal MRI meeting. This meeting will be special. One the one side it will take take place in continents at the same time, i.e. Philadelphia (USA) and Lisbon (Portugal) with shared sessions, and on the other hand it will be co hosted as an ISMRM workshop. During the three days meeting we will be able to merge our efforts with a wider audience and surely boost our impact. Be part of it and save the dates: from the 10th to the 12th of September 2021! Further information will be available on the ISMRM webpage And on our webpage.

ESUR working group on functional renal MRI

We are happy to announce Working Group 3 is forming an ESUR (European Society of Urogenital Radiology) working group on Functional renal magnetic resonance imaging. We strongly believe that an ESUR working group is the best way to ensure long-term sustainability of goals reached by PARENCHIMA. Therefore, every PARENCHIMA member is welcome to join this ESUR working group to keep up our exchange and collaboration and to bridge our findings on renal MRI with clinicians. If you are interested or have further questions, please contact the task force leads, Alexandra Ljimani and Marcos Wolf.

ISMRM study group on renal MRI

In collaboration with PARENCHIMA WG1, Eric Sigmund (NYU) has taken the initiative to set up a new ISMRM study group on MRI of the kidney. Apart from a broader mission in promoting the development and application of MRI in the kidney, this new study group will specifically also serve as a vehicle to further develop, maintain and update the technical recommendations by PARENCHIMA WG1. We expect the study group will be formally launched at the time of the Hybrid ISMRM meeting of 2021.

Phase contrast MRI recommendations

Following recommendations on MR relaxometry, DWI, ASL, and BOLD, consensus-based recommendations on renal phase-contrast MRI have just been published and are openly available here

Renal MRI clinical study lists

The PARENCHIMA website lists clinical studies using renal MRI that have been completed or are currently ongoing. As we move into the final year of the COST action, we would like to ask all renal MRI members to check the list of studies which can be accessed directly using these links: all clinical areas apart from PKD and renal transplantation; PKD; and renal transplantation. At present, we don’t have any COVID studies using renal MRI, but would be good to add if there are any involving renal MRI.

If you are running a study that is not on the list and would like it added, if you need to amend any of the details currently displayed or add any missing information then please email Anna Caroli. Please note – we need to receive replies on this by 4th of January - after this deadline, we are planning to finalise the lists and archive these tables as a record of activity at the end of 2020.

ESMRMB session videos online

In case you missed our ESMRMB session in the 1st of October 2020, you can find our abstracts and videos online here.

DWI special issue

The Journal of Clinical Medicine is going to publish a special issue on DWI: clinical potential and applications
If you are working on DWI - in the kidney or in any other anatomical district - and are willing to raise awareness among clinicians about DWI biomarker potential please contribute with an original paper. Deadline for manuscript submission: August 31st 2021.

Acknowledgement

This newsletter is based upon work from COST Action PARENCHIMA (CA16103), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.

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