Newsletter - Summer 2023

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 10:52:31 GMT

Dear SCMR Cardiac Diffusion SIG members,

Welcome to the first summer newsletter of the Cardiac Diffusion SIG!

It was great to meet some of you in person during ISMRM 2023 in Toronto, we are now really looking forward for SCMR in London! First, we would like to thank all who responded to the survey and for your engagement in the SIG. The survey results are summarized below, and have been used to inform planning of SIG activities. In this first newsletter, we would like to outline our plans for the SIG for the next two years, as follows:

1. Survey results (N = 14)

	More	Okay	Less	NA
Education in cardiac diffusion MRI	64%	36%
Effective online presence	57%	29%		14%
Clear mission and organization	50%	50%
Engagement with clinical community	50%	50%
Facilitating collaborations	50%	43%		7%
Engagement with scientific community	43%	57%
Communication with SIG members	43%	43%		14%
Scientific output by SIG	36%	64%
Organizing scientific seminars	29%	57%	7%	7%

	Monthly	Quarterly	Biannually
Online meetings	8%	77%	15%
Updates	31%	69%	0%

2. Meeting Schedule

From the survey, the majority voted for quarterly meetings. We propose to continue with in-person meetings at SCMR and ISMRM, and complemented by two online meetings.

- SCMR business meeting (late January - early February)

- ISMRM informal meeting (late May – early June)

- Summer online meeting (late August – early September)

- Fall online meeting (late November – early December)

3. Updates and Mailing Lists

In between meetings, we will communicate with you through a quarterly newsletter. So far, communication with the SIG has been via the Imperial mailing list, and we thank Dr Andrew Scott for generously giving his time to support this. Going forward, we plan to communicate through the SCMR SIG email list and the Imperial email list. If you are member of both email lists, you will receive twice the email, we apologize but it is the only way to ensure that non-SCMR members receive the newsletter. We will continue to review ways to optimize outreach to SIG members.

4. Governing Committee

Currently, two co-leads are nominated/elected for concurrent two-year terms. To improve continuity and consistency with other study groups, also in line with feedback received in the survey, we would advocate for there to be a Chair and a Vice-chair. Each year, nominations/elections would be held at the SCMR business meeting for the Vice-chair position. After serving for one year, the Vice-chair would automatically become Chair, who would then serve for a further year.

To improve inclusiveness and succession planning, we would also look at introducing additional roles including Secretary, Past-chair, Trainee representative and Past-trainee rep. We plan to discuss governance issues at our next meeting.

5. Elections

The Cardiac Diffusion SIG represents a pluri-disciplinary group with members from both SCMR and ISMRM communities. Currently the official membership of the SIG is linked to the SCMR membership, thus only SCMR members can cast a vote during an election. We are aware of this situation, and we have opened the conversation with SCMR to be the most inclusive as we possibly can, and will keep you posted.

We recognise the importance of transparency and the principles of equity, diversity and inclusiveness. These shall be enshrined in a written document that is periodically reviewed. We would encourage persons from different backgrounds e.g. age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and disability status, to run / be nominated for the governing and other committees.

6. Sub-Committees

To help drive developments in key areas, we propose to create a number of sub-committees (below). Each sub-committee will have involvement of at least one of the SIG governing committee members to assure consistency. Sub-committee membership is voluntary and will be reviewed annually.

- Archive - collating published material and reference lists

- Communications - organizing membership lists, mailing lists, social media.

- Education - curating and generating educational content.

- Scientific - planning and coordinating scientific outputs.

- Website - website design, setup, admin, and maintenance

- Workshops - planning and coordinating scientific/educational workshops.

In the survey, we asked for volunteers with interest to contribute to the SIG, and we have reached out to prospective volunteers. Thank you for your response and support. If anyone missed the survey and would like to contribute to the SIG, please get in touch with us.

7. Scientific program

The SIG has so far published on a multi-center phantom study and two joint letters on good practice in cardiac diffusion MRI, with a consensus paper in the pipeline. We thank you once again for the great ideas shared in the survey, for our next steps scientifically. We are exploring opportunities for multi-centre studies and/or a Challenge activity that could build on our ongoing work looking at harmonization and improvement of methods in cardiac diffusion MRI. The Scientific sub-committee will be looking into developing these ideas, with inputs from SIG, and we will update on the plan for the scientific program at our next meeting.

8. Workshops

Our field has come a long way in the past decade, and organizing workshops would be a good way to raise the profile of cardiac diffusion MRI. We have discussed with SCMR the possibility of organizing a co-provided SCMR/ISMRM workshop in 2025. This has been received with enthusiasm, and we are in active talks with the SCMR leadership. These efforts will be further progressed by the Workshops sub-committee.

9. Mission statement

Finally, we have drafted an introductory text for the cardiac diffusion SIG (See Appendix A), and would like to seek your inputs and feedback. Please send any inputs by 7 Aug 2023. The final text will be ratified at our next meeting.

10. Next Meeting

The next scheduled virtual meeting will be:

7 Sep 2023 (Thu), 8.00 – 9.30pm (PST) / 11.00 – 12.30pm (EST) / 3.00 – 4.30pm (UTC)

Please keep your diaries free. An invitation and agenda will be sent beforehand.

Thank you for your engagement in the SIG. Please feel free to get in touch with any feedback or to volunteer. We hope to see you at our upcoming online meeting.

Irvin and Kevin

kevin.moulin@cardio.chboston.org

i.teh@leeds.ac.uk

Appendix A

SCMR CARDIAC DIFFUSION SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (SIG)

BACKGROUND

Cardiac diffusion MRI is an emerging technique for microstructural characterization of the heart. The cardiac function and cardiac cellular micro-organization are highly interconnected. The adult heart comprises more than a billion cardiomyocytes that change orientation in a helicoidal manner from endocardium to epicardium and that contract in a highly coordinated manner to generate the cardiac output. Perturbations to the underlying microstructure are an important feature in conditions such as myocardial infarction (MI) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). For example, an increase in collagen and scar following remodeling in MI, and cell disarray in HCM, which can be assessed with cardiac diffusion MRI.

The microscopic displacement of water molecules due to diffusion is heavily influenced by the presence of cells and by the properties of these cells such as size, shape, orientation, permeability and so forth. Thus, by encoding the water diffusion information in the MRI image, one can directly interrogate cardiac microstructure. In cardiac diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for example, several diffusion directions are encoded and then diffusion tensors are fitted. From the diffusion tensor, several quantitative values can be derived such as the mean diffusivity (MD) that describes the average apparent diffusion, the fractional anisotropy (FA) that describes the eccentricity of the tensor, the principal directions of diffusivity that represent the long-axis orientation of the cardio-myocytes (primary eigenvector) and the sheetlet orientation (second & third). Other metrics can be extracted from the diffusion tensor such as the helix angle (HA) and sheetlet angle (E2A) that represent the orientation of cardiomyocytes and sheetlet layers respectively.

The links between the diffusion tensor and cardiac microstructure have been validated in numerous preclinical ex vivo and in vivo studies. Early clinical studies have reported initial diffusion parameters in the pathologic heart. In particular, higher myocardial MD and lower FA have been reported in pathologies such as MI, HCM and aortic stenosis (AS). Similarly, differences in HA and E2A angles have been reported in conditions such as MI, HCM, AS and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). This is thought to be related to the underlying changes in the cardiac microstructure.

The field of cardiac diffusion MRI remains technologically challenging due to a number of factors such as cardiac and respiratory motion, distortion and long scan times. Nonetheless, the field has been rapidly expanding over the past years, with publications in DTI more than doubling over the decade up to 2020 (PubMed search), and whole heart DTI within clinically feasible scan times looks increasingly likely to be achievable within the foreseeable future.

We would like to invite everyone with an interest in cardiac diffusion MRI to join and get involved with the SIG.

MISSION

To lead on scientific excellence, education and international collaboration in cardiac diffusion MRI, in order to drive its clinical translation for the improvement of diagnosis and management of patients.

AIMS

To promote scientific excellence and develop the field of cardiac diffusion MRI.

To connect researchers and facilitate collaborative work between scientists and clinicians.

To work with SCMR leadership to promote the use of cardiac diffusion MRI in data registries and clinical trials.

To drive clinical translation of cardiac diffusion MRI, through harmonization and standardization of methods, facilitation of multi-center collaborative efforts, and generation of practice guidelines based on expert consensus.

To prioritize equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI), and encourage involvement of persons from all backgrounds in the SIG.

To serve as an educational and archival resource, for dissemination of knowledge and best practices.

To train and guide researchers, clinicians and technologists, and especially to welcome those new to the field, in the consistent and optimal use of cardiac diffusion MRI.

SIG GOVERNANCE

Current Leads

Dr. Kévin Moulin, Boston Children’s Hospital, USA

Dr. Irvin Teh, University of Leeds, UK

Past Leads

2023; San Diego, USA

Dr. Christopher Nguyen, Cleveland Clinic, USA

Dr. Christian T. Stoeck, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

2022; Virtual

Dr. Christopher Nguyen, Cleveland Clinic, USA

Dr. Christian T. Stoeck, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

2021; Virtual

Dr. Christopher Nguyen, Massachusetts General Hospital, USA

Dr. Christian T. Stoeck, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

2020; Orlando, USA

Prof. Daniel B. Ennis, Stanford University, UK

Prof. Jürgen E. Schneider, University of Leeds, UK

2019; Seattle, USA

Prof. Daniel B. Ennis, Stanford University, UK

Prof. Jürgen E. Schneider, University of Leeds, UK

2018; Barcelona, Spain

Dr. Andrew D. Scott, Imperial College London and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, UK

Dr. Santiago Miro, Institut Universitaire de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie de Québec, Canada

2017; Washigton DC, USA

Dr. Magalie Viallon, CREATIS-INSA Lyon, France

Dr. Andrew D. Scott, Imperial College London and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, UK

2016; Los Angeles

Prof. Daniel B. Ennis, Stanford University, UK

Dr. Andrew D. Scott, Imperial College London and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, UK

Dr. Sonia Nielles-Vallespin, Imperial College London and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, UK

Dr. Magalie Viallon, CREATIS-INSA Lyon, France

Prof. Pierre Croisille, CREATIS-INSA Lyon, France