The North American Society for Cardiac Imaging (NASCI) is an
international organization dedicated to the advancement of cardiovascular imaging.

We now have 312 members! Join the oldest (established 1973) and largest society dedicated to all cardiac imaging. If you're already a member--enlist your colleagues! It now easier than ever to join and increase your knowledge in the state-of-the-art of cardiovascular imaging.

Changes to the bylaws are being presented to the membership for a vote in order to facilitate the growth of the Society. The change will make it easier for physicians and scientists as well as colleagues in-training to join the Society and will initiate all non-members attending NASCI sponsored educational events into the Society for one year. Two other changes which will effect all members is that the dues year will be January through December to coincide with the journal subscriptions and the dues will increase to $150 to include a complimentary subscription to the International Journal for Cardiovascular Imaging for all NASCI member. In order to make this transition easier on our members we will include a complimentary quarter-year so that the upcoming dues renewal will span from October 2001 through December.

Join the ACR (American College of Radiology) - In order to gain representation on the ACR council, sixty percent of a society's membership must also be members of the ACR. If you are a NASCI member help us gain ACR representation by becoming a member of the ACR. If already an ACR member, please maintain your ACR membership. All domestic members who are board certified radiologists should join the ACR if not currently enrolled. Benefits to NASCI include support in advancing cardiac imaging within the radiology. Benefits to ACR members as a whole include reimbursement initiatives, education on CPT coding, and political representation. ACR, in conjunction with the RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) and ARRS (American Roentgen Ray Society) has already offered tremendous support in helping NASCI advance educational initiatives in cardiac imaging. The Cardiovascular Imaging 2001 Course is an example of this collaboration.

Cases are being requested for the American Board of Radiology oral examination, 2003. Dr. Hrudaya Nath from Alabama is assisting Dr. Kay Vydareny from Georgia, who heads the Cardiopulmonary section of the American Board of Radiology, to add more examples of cardiac CT and MR, with or with out complementary conventional angiograms, to be used during the oral examination.

Become a Member of the American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and Intervention. This Council of the AHA gives is the channel for cardiovascular radiology-directed initiatives of the American Heart Association.

This year we welcome to the NASCI Board E. Kent Yucel, M.D., Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Robert Steiner, M.D., New York Presbyterian Hospital, NY; Johan H.C Reiber, Ph.D., Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands and Pamela K. Woodard, M.D, Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT. Dr. Woodard is the new editor for the NASCI newsletter and has recently moved to Yale from Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, St. Louis, MO.

The next NASCI Meeting to be held in CHICAGO, September 29 to October 2, 2001 - The 29th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions of the North American Society for Cardiac Imaging (NASCI) will consist of a Cardiovascular Imaging Course (September 29-30) followed by The 2nd International Workshop on Coronary MR and CT Angiography, a 2-day scientific symposium (October 1-2, 2001). It's still not too late to submit abstracts! The meetings will be held at the Wyndham Chicago Hotel, Chicago, IL, USA. These two programs follow the XIII Annual International Workshop on Magnetic Resonance Angiography, September 26-29, 2001 in Madison, WI.

The First International Workshop on Coronary MR and CT Angiography, a North American Society for Cardiac Imaging event, took place during Oct. 2-3, 2000 in Lyon, France, preceding the XII International Workshop on Magnetic Resonance Angiography. The meeting was organized by Andre Duerinckx, MD-PhD from the Texas Healthcare System & University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, TX and Philippe Douek, MD-PhD, Hospital Cardiologique, Lyon, France. Leading researchers in the field of coronary MR & CT angiography came together to review the current status and discuss the future of non-invasive coronary artery imaging with MR and CT. The meeting was hugely successful and was also attended by many clinicians new to the field. There were 11 scientific sessions for the 2-day meeting, ranging from basic review and introduction to updates on latest research. Some of the hotly debated areas include the clinical roles of MR vs. CT for non-invasive coronary imaging, free breathing vs. breath-hold MR coronary imaging, the role of contrast agents in MR coronary artery imaging, and coronary angiography vs. plaque imaging. The meeting also provided a forum for industry to present their approaches for coronary MRA. Results on pre-clinical trials using both MR and CT were presented. There was also a video-based training session.

It was the impression from the meeting that both MR and CT have their advantages and drawbacks. It is perhaps too early to predict which modality will eventually become the method of choice for non-invasive coronary imaging. Perhaps MR and CT will be suitable for different patient populations. Further studies are required to answer these questions. It should be noted that although it appears that multi-detector CT has made dramatic progress in imaging coronary arteries recently, the technology has been under development for a number of years before making the headlines. MR coronary artery imaging research has been going on for over 10 years and a wide range of techniques have been developed. Many techniques work well with healthy volunteers. The major problems have been the consistency of the techniques in large patient populations because of the practical issues such as patient cooperation, ECG signal pickup, experience of the operator, hardware and software incompatibilities. Further investigations are required to address these issues. For the role of contrast agent, especially that of blood pool agents in coronary artery imaging, people seemed to agree that the availability of contrast agents can provide a strong boost for signal-to-noise ratio which can be traded for higher resolution imaging and/or shorter imaging time. Nevertheless, patient studies are required to validate that these improvements can lead to improved disease detection. Finally, plaque imaging is in principle more desirable than angiography for characterizing coronary artery disease and important early progress has been made to demonstrate the feasibility, it is more technically challenging and extensive technical developments are required before it can play any clinical role. The 2nd International Workshop on Coronary MR and CT Angiography will held in Chicago, October. 1-2, 2001.

Limited financial support (up to US $1,000 per person) is available to attend the Oct 1-2, 2001 NASCI Workshop. This funding is provided by the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and the NASCI Research and Education Fund, to encourage participation by YOUNG INVESTIGATORS (students, trainees, fellows, PhD Candidates, etc.). Abstracts may be submitted via the NASCI web site or may be sent to NASCI via regular mail addressed to the NASCI office address to the attention of Dr. Lawrence Boxt. Please include 5 copies of the abstract with a cover letter from the Chairman or Program Director verifying status for competitive evaluation by the NASCI selection committee.

September 22-26, 2001 -- NASCI Cardiac Symposium In conjunction with the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) 2001, Goteborg, Sweden

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