EUROSON 2009 Edinburgh UK ‐ Young Investigator’s Award was presented jointly to Esther Leung (The Netherlands) and Moritz Palmowski (Germany)

Table of Contents

Esther Leung Curriculum Vitae

Esther Leung was born in 1981 in Hong Kong. She received her M.Sc. degree in Applied Physics with honours from the Delft University of Technology in 2005. The subject of her master thesis was motion compensation for intravascular ultrasound strain imaging. Recently, she received her Ph.D. degree with honours. This research, performed at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, resulted in the thesis "automated analysis of 3D stress echocardiography". Her research interests include medical ultrasound, image processing, and clinical applications development.

Abstract

Automated analysis of three-dimensional stress echocardiography

K.Y.E. Leung, M. van Stralen, M. Danilouchkine, N. de Jong, A.F.W. van der Steen, J.G. Bosch,Biomedical Engineering, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Stress echocardiography evaluates cardiac function by comparing the left ventricular (LV) motion in images taken in rest and stress stages (i.e. elevated cardiac workload). Recently, real-time 3D imaging has been proposed for this technique. To support manual analysis, which is subjective and tedious, we propose automated methods for 3D stress echo.

Young Investigators EUROSON 2009 Edinburgh UK Back row, left to right: Julien Stirnemann (France) Moritz Palmowski (Germany); Front row, left to right: Erik Andreas Torkildsen (Norway) Veronica Salvatore (Italy) Eleanor Martin (UK) and Esther Leung (The Netherlands)

The methods employ statistical modeling, which describes typical structural and functional variability in many patients, thus capturing the expert manual analysis. Such models are used to extract important anatomical views in rest images. The corresponding views in stress are then found via automatic alignment. This provides in many cases better (18 %) or equivalent (75 %) results to manual analysis. To measure cardiac motion, models are used to extract the LV borders in end- diastole. Low surface errors (2.9±1.0 mm) and good volume regression (R=0.93, -1.5±18.6 ml) are found. The LV borders throughout the cardiac cycle are then obtained via tracking, guided by cardiac motion models (surface errors: 1.2±0.5 mm, volume errors: 1.4±6.7 ml). Using motion models, motion abnormalities can be detected accurately (77–91 %). With our own software for 3D stress echo, we show that better interobserver agreement is achieved (96 %) than with commercially available software (79 %). In conclusion, automated analysis of 3D stress echo is highly promising, allowing objective and quantitative assessment of cardiac function.

EUROSON 2010 – Welcome to Wonderful Copenhagen

Updated scientific programme and details on symposias are now available at the congress website http://www.euroson2010.org . Online registration and hotel booking is open.

Important dates:

• Congress: 22–25 August 2010

• Deadline for Abstract Submission: 1 May 2010

• Deadline for the Low Registration Fee: 1 June 2010

Moritz Palmowski Curriculum Vitae

Moritz Palmowski, MD was born in 1977 in Heidelberg, Germany, and attended Medical School at Heidelberg University. He completed his PostDoc at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Department of Medical Physics in Radiology (Prof. Semmler), Working Group "Molecular Imaging" (Prof. Kiessling) and is currently at the University of Aachen Habilitation ("venia legendi"; P.D.). His awards include the DEGUM Research Award 2008, Best scientific paper presentation in the category "Molecular Imaging", European Congress of Radiology 2008, Vienna, Travel Award 2007 – German Research Foundation (DFG), Travel Award 2006 – German Research Foundation and Rajewsky Scholarship 2006

Abstract

Molecular Imaging with Ultrasound

The recent development of target-specific microbubbles has been the key which has opened up the door for a molecular imaging with ultrasound. These target-specific ultrasound contrast agents are retained within diseased blood vessels where they can be used to diagnose and further characterize a diseased tissue or support an image guided intervention (e.g. biopsy). The specificity of targeted microbubbles is accomplished by a coating with specific ligands or antibodies against disease-associated molecular markers. Due to the fact that microbubbles cannot leave the intravascular space, the disease process must be characterized by molecular changes in the vascular compartment to be assessed. This precondition is fulfilled for markers expressed during tumor-angiogenesis (e.g. VEGF-receptor type 2, v3-Integrin) as well as for markers expressed during inflammation (e.g. ICAM-1, VCAM, E-selectine, P-selectine).

Today, target-specific ultrasound contrast agents used in the preclinical research predominantly utilize the streptavidin-biotin binding system to connect biotinylated antibodies to streptavidin-coated microbubbles. In a preclinical setting, this type of specific probe has shown convincing results in the diagnosis of experimental tumors and in the assessment of early treatment effects. Due to the potential immunogenicity of streptavidin, these contrast agents are used in preclinical research only. However, clinically translatable ultrasound contrast will be introduced into the clinics soon where they are expected to be a promising tool in the diagnosis of such diseases as tumor-related angiogenesis, neuronal inflammatory processes, transplant rejection or atherosclerosis.