The winners of the ECR 2018 Cases of the Day Quiz are as follows:
Mehmet Serindere; Hatay/TR
Sungeun Park; Seoul/KR
Seungchul Han; Seoul/KR
Sewoo Kim; Seoul/KR
S. A. Sohaib; Sutton/UK
Rafal Darecki; Koscierzyna/PL
To view the cases please click here.
Congratulations to all winners!
Dear Friends,
Over the last couple of years, one of the last sessions at the ECR has always covered 20 interesting cases from various subspecialties, which the audience is asked to solve in an interactive way to broaden and update their knowledge.
In between, the very best submissions from the global radiological community have been presented in an interlude lecture. The best submission has always been awarded with a prize and a certificate.
Due to time limits, not all submitted cases can actually be shown onsite, but the session’s rising popularity has resulted in increasing numbers of submissions of excellent quality and didactic value. This is why we would like to give our submitters the opportunity to reach a broader audience by posting the best cases here on the ESR Blog.
This year’s topic was Normal variant or disease to avoid misdiagnosis, overdiagnosis, unnecessary and costly work-up, as well as patient’s concerns.
When we think back of our time in medical school and remember our studies of embryology, we have probably all thought at some stage, how astonishing it is that a viable fetus develops and a healthy newborn is delivered. Embryological development is so complex that an awful lot can go wrong at any stage. Fortunately, real malformations are rare. In our professional life as radiologists, though, we are not infrequently dealing with normal variants, when development is arrested at a certain stage or turns the wrong way round. Even first year residents are familiar with right sided aortic arch, azygos lobe and accessory ossification centres. Over time, one encounters a whole array of normal variants and learns to interprete them as such. Of course, one can only identify, what one has learnt to see and there is a large spectrum of slight developmental abnormalities, which should not be misdiagnosed as abnormality in need of further imaging, invasive diagnostic procedures or treatment. On the other hand, some developmental disorders have clinical significance and you could be the first to advise the patient.
Below, we are pleased to present the best submissions for the “Normal variant or disease” interlude at ECR 2018:
By Julia Patuzzi
As has been our tradition for a few years now on the final day of our congress, we already look ahead to next year’s ECR. We therefore spoke with Prof. Lorenzo E. Derchi from Genoa, Italy, who, as incoming ESR President, is in charge of ECR 2019. He told us about his plans and ideas for the next European Congress of Radiology.
ECR Today: Professor Derchi, next year’s European Congress of Radiology will be the 25th to be held in Vienna. Are there any specific celebrations planned that you can already share with us?
As incoming ESR president, Prof. Lorenzo E. Derchi, Head of the Department of Radiology at the University of Genoa, will preside over ECR 2019.
Lorenzo E. Derchi: We are still thinking about them. An anniversary like this is something more than an opportunity for a big celebration. It is the right moment to re-think our history and what we have reached over the years. To always have the congress in the same city since 1991, at first every other year and then, after 1999, annually, has been a radical change. The new formula proved successful and ECR has become the European meeting to come to in order to learn the latest clinical and technical advances in our discipline as well as to present the results of the previous year’s research.
In my experience, however, it has become much more. From 1991 up until today all congress chairpersons have been part of the same team in a relay race, each handing off the baton to the next one. This continuity can be felt in the special atmosphere at each meeting, and has allowed the congress to become the annual appointment to meet old friends and make new ones; to discuss any radiological topic and then to start working together on it; and finally a place to meet periodically to share problems, advancements and results of long-term projects.
ECRT: Were you here for the first ECR in Vienna in 1991? If not, when did you attend your first ECR? What do you recall from that visit?
by Prof. Bernd Hamm, ESR President
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to ECR 2018!
The European Congress of Radiology has attendees from all over the world – from over 140 countries and many diverse cultures. It is a multi-professional meeting where international experts can shake hands with students, medical residents exchange ideas with physicists, and radiographers share their perspectives with industry representatives.
I chose ‘Diverse & United’ as our congress motto this year, as radiology is such a diverse specialty, covering a huge range of medical and scientific topics: from ever more refined diagnostic options to image-guided minimally invasive treatment options. Alongside our diversity, as radiologists and radiographers we should also stay united, which is in the interest of our specialty and our patients. This is what our congress is: something to offer for everyone, regardless of profession, cultural background or specialisation.
ESR President Bernd Hamm is professor of radiology and chairman of all three merged departments of radiology at the Charité, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Freie Universität. He is also clinical director of the Charité Center, which includes radiology, neuroradiology, nuclear medicine and medical physics.
Being Congress President in 2015 gave me the unique opportunity for re-evaluation and to implement new things that I feel strongly about as well as fine-tune features that already existed. It was generally important to me to introduce new ideas in order for those of you who’ve even been coming to Vienna for decades, just like me, to get the chance to experience multiple innovations.
MyT3 is a new session format, adapting the ECR even more to these fast-moving times. 240 daring colleagues will present their scientific thesis in just three minutes! As if this wasn’t dramatic enough, we decided to hold these speedy sessions on the Sky High Stage which overlooks the city of Vienna, as only the sky is the limit for this new generation of radiology professionals.
Additionally, we created another new session format, ‘Coffee & Talk’, which is highly interactive with much more time for discussion than usual and in a relaxed atmosphere, with the possibility to also enjoy a coffee or other hot beverage. The interesting lectures on offer in these sessions call for an exciting exchange, bringing together different statements and opinions as well as Viennese coffee culture.
For the first time, the CUBE will open its doors to you: a theme park for interventional radiology (IR), designed for residents who haven’t specialised yet. Challenges, quizzes, training and much more will be focused on IR in emergencies plus other everyday topics, including the aorta, oncology, peripherals, and stroke. Without wanting to give away too much, I recommend paying the Cube a visit during lunchtime for ‘the main event’: the daily highlight involving experts in the arena, less challenging as well as more challenging interventions and much more. Come and be part of it!
An exclusive interview with the incoming ESR President
ECR Today spoke with the incoming ESR President, Prof. Bernd Hamm, from Berlin, Germany, to learn about his ideas for next year’s congress.
ECR Today: You were already ECR Congress President in 2015. How did you come to be president again in 2018?
Bernd Hamm is professor of radiology and chairman of all three merged departments of radiology at the Charité, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Freie Universität (Campus Mitte, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, and Campus Benjamin Franklin). He is also clinical director of the Charité Center, which includes radiology, neuroradiology, nuclear medicine and medical physics.
Bernd Hamm: This is not the first time that I have been asked: “why are you president again?” It was a great pleasure and responsibility to be the ECR President in 2015. For many years, we had two presidents – one to manage the affairs of the European Society of Radiology (ESR) and another to organise the society’s annual congress (ECR). And frankly, in my opinion this was a good division of labour. However, “the times they are a changin’ …” and, therefore, our society changed its statutes, and now we only have one president, who is both President of the ECR and President of the ESR.
This new combined ESR/ECR President begins his or her term of office at the end of each ECR by organising and chairing the next ECR and then the following year, as Chairman of the Board, focuses on professional and administrative business of the ESR. For me, this means a double honour and double responsibility. When I was elected to be the congress president for ECR 2015, I made a great effort to make the ECR a success and I will do my best to make ECR 2018 a success too.
However, I wish to underline that the ECR is a team effort and that the Programme Planning Committee with its brilliant members is a major asset in compiling an attractive scientific programme and that the organisation of a congress like the ECR is not possible without the highly professional staff of the ESR Office. Working together with many colleagues from many countries and different fields of radiology is very inspiring and is what ultimately underlies an attractive congress. This joint effort is rewarding and enlightening.
ECRT: As a motto for ECR 2018 you chose ‘Diverse and United’. Could you tell us a little about this?
BH: Radiology is such a diverse specialty, ranging from more and more refined diagnostic options to image-guided minimally invasive treatment options. Our specialty has something to offer for all of us and also for future generations of physicians, radiographers and students. However, like in a mosaic, it is the connection of all the pieces that create the big picture. By using this metaphor I wish to express my sincere wish and hope that, despite these different and interesting facets and subspecialties, radiologists should see themselves as a community and join forces to strengthen our specialty in the best interest of our patients.
In 2015 we also had a motto – ‘Radiology without borders’. In the beginning of 2015, none of us would have expected to see new fences being erected in Europe and borders becoming important once again. In view of these tendencies, it is even more important for our scientific community to practice radiology without borders and to advance our specialty through free academic discourse and by benefiting from a diversity of ideas.
