4th Annual ISNVD conference announced

[Cece]

http://www.isnvd.org/

I'm not the only one who was here on TiMS when ISNVD was formed. Now they're up to the 4th conference? Can we mark progress by what number they are on? Will venoplasty for CCSVI be established as standard care by the time they're up to the 5th conference? Or 6th or 7th or 17th. There will always be new people being diagnosed with MS, there will always be a need for CCSVI treatment if and when CCSVI treatment is established as beneficial, but what becomes of the people who are here, now, and getting worse?

[Robnl]

Well, maybe the 5th will be groundbreaking; with a little luck some results from brave dreams
will be presented in 2015.....but...maybe i'm too enthousiastic ;)

[Cece]

I want to be enthusiastic too. The PREMiSe results were discouraging. Does Brave Dreams have a good enough trial design? Are they measuring the right things? Does CCSVI treatment actually help people? I feel so so so much better after having been treated but feeling better is not objectively measurable.

[1eye]

Don't knock enthusiasm. I haven't had the exacerbation that kills that.

[pairOdime]

The 4th Annual ISNVD Scientific Meeting
Preliminary Schedule

Friday, February 7, 2014
Plenary Lecture and Opening Reception

Saturday, February 8, 2014
Session 1: CCSVI 1: A multi-modality approach
Diagnostic modalities: CT, MRI, Ultrasound, etc.

Session 2: CCSVI 2: Treatment of abnormal venous flow

Session 3: CCSVI 3: Other Neurological Diseases
Parkinson's, intracranial hypertension, transient monocular blindness, aging

Session 4: Quantifying flow in neurological disease
Measuring flow in veins, arteries, CSF

Sunday, February 9, 2014
Session 5: Monitoring the hemodynamics of the brain
The roles of ASL, DTI, MRA, PWI and SWI in neurological diseases

Session 6: Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Modeling, diagnosing and understanding the role of venous damage in TBI

[Cece]

I like session 2 the best (treatment of abnormal venous flow).

Session 5: Monitoring the hemodynamics of the brain
The roles of ASL, DTI, MRA, PWI and SWI in neurological diseases

ASL ?
DTI ?
MRA ?
PWI ?
SWI ?

MRA is along the lines of MRV or MRI.
SWI measures iron in the brain.

[pairOdime]

See link below for additional information on ASL (arterial spin labeling)...cerebrovascular imaging modality used to evaluate perfusion that does not require the injection of a contrast agent. A drawback potentially is that ASL imaging of venous return becomes more problematic as the velocity of the flow slows on the return to the heart.

http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/sscc/staff/rwc ... s/M_09.pdf

[pairOdime]

As you can imagine, Dr. Mark Haacke is very involved with the development of new imaging modalities and techniques.

http://www.mrimaging.com/category.77.html

Dr. E. Mark Haacke is the primary inventor of SWI along with his fellow co-inventors both Dr. Juergen Reichenbach and Dr. Yi Wang.

We have developed a new type of contrast in MRI different from spin density, T1, or T2 imaging. This new method exploits the susceptibility differences between tissues. We refer to this method as Susceptibility Weighted Imaging*. SWI uses a fully velocity compensated, three dimensional, rf spoiled, high-resolution, 3D gradient echo scan. Signal from substances with different susceptibilities than their neighboring tissues (such as venous blood, or hemorrhage, for example) will become out of phase with adjacent tissues at sufficiently long echo times. If the size of the source is smaller than a voxel then the signal from this substance will beat against that of its neighbor creating a powerful partial volume effect. SWI can be run on any manufacturer’s machine at field strengths of 1.0T, 1.5T, 3.0T and higher.

[pairOdime]

This is coming up next month. Hopefully the 4th conference will accelerate the process of diagnosis and treatment for CCSVI. It should be very interesting.

[tzootsi]

I'm surprised Dr. Sclafani's name isn't there.

[Robnl]

I asked dr sclafani; he wants to be a listener this time...