Speaker: Dr. Benoît Doche de Laquintane, MD
Radiologist
Medical Imaging Group IMAGIR
Bordeaux, France

Dr. Benoît Doche is active in Neuroradiology, collaborates weekly with the multidisciplinary epilepsy meetings and monthly with multidisciplinary meetings in the field of neuro-inflammatory diseases at the University Hospital of Bordeaux.

Presentation title: Practical imaging of neuroinflammatory diseases in daily clinical routine

The presentation will start from morphological sequences like 3D-FLAIR. The detection of hyperintense signals and their localization in the brain from periventricular to juxtacortical in diseases like Multiple Sclerosis will be compared next to 3D-FLAIR also with 3D-DIR. The image data processing to search for new lesion development using software, like Olea Sphere, will be discussed.
Then, we will continue with morphological sequences like 3D-T1 Gradient echo for the follow up of atrophy and 3D-T1 Spin echo to look for enhancing lesions. Additionally, the value of Proton Density and MP2RAGE sequences on spine imaging will be shown. The importance of acceleration techniques like advanced intelligent Clear-IQ Engine (AiCE) and Compressed Speeder will be highlighted mainly for their time saving potential and image quality improvement.

Speaker: Prof. Bart van Wijmeersch, MD, PHD
Neurologist-Immunologist
Medical Head of the Univeristy MS Centre, Pelt
Universitair MS Centrum, Hasselt-Pelt ; Noorderhart hospitals, Revalidation & MS, Pelt ; Hasselt University
Pelt-Hasselt, Belgium

Prof. Bart van Wijmeersch is a neurologist specialized in Multiple Sclerosis. He is the medical director of the University MS Centre in Pelt where he leads the multidisciplinary MS-team. Furthermore, he is an associate professor of Neurology at the University of Hasselt, where he’s involved in pre-clinical as well as the clinical research on MS. He has a supporting role in all the immunological research on blood- and CSF samples of persons with MS and in EAE-animal models, as well as in the clinical rehabilitation research (BIOMED & REVAL). Immunological, Biomarker, MRI, Electrophysiological and Rehabilitation research in MS come together in this way. He has an educational role in the faculty of medicine and physiotherapy.
He’s a member of the Belgian Study Group of Multiple Sclerosis and a member of advisory boards of different pharmaceutical companies with interest in Multiple Sclerosis. He was co-founder and the first President of the ParadigMS Foundation, an organisation dedicated to education on MS to improve everyday clinical care of persons with MS. As an acknowledgment of his scientific work, he received an honorary award of the Flemish government in the summer of 2019.

Presentation title: The Current Use of OCT in MS care

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a technique to image and measure the different layers of the human retina. In Multiple Sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system with neurodegenerative characteristics, the optic nerve is often involved, with demyelination and axonal damage as a consequence. Moreover, slow neurodegeneration of the brain and spinal cord takes place over time secondary to the neuroinflammation.
Therefore OCT can be a good tool to visualise and measure the retinal damage caused by MS, but also act as a surrogate marker for the more neurodegenerative process taking place inside the whole Brain. In this way OCT can help neurologists in the care for MS patients in terms of MS-prognosis, treatment choices and follow-up. During this presentation, the different aspects and possibilities of the use of OCT in current MS-care will be highlighted.

Speaker: Prof. Thomas Tourdias, MD, PhD
Professor of radiology
Head of research Institute Bio Imaging
Bordeaux University Hospital
Bordeaux, France

Prof. Thomas Tourdias has been qualified as an MD specialist in radiology in 2008. In parallel, he moved to a research curriculum and obtained a PhD in basic neurosciences in 2011. He conducted a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University (CA, USA) to work on 7T magnet in 2012 and 2013. During this training he could obtain strong complementary expertise in clinical neuroimaging, basic neurosciences and MR physics. He is now full professor in medical imaging at Bordeaux University and hospital practitioner (PU-PH) at Bordeaux University Hospital. He is conducting his research in the team INSERM Unit U1215 ("Pathophysiology of neural plasticity") in connection with the Institute of Bio-Imaging (IBIO) where he is leading a scientific program on personalized medicine guided by imaging. He is using strongly translational approaches combining in vivo imaging in animal models and in clinical studies with major focusses on stroke and multiple sclerosis.

Presentation title: Advanced imaging in MS

Multiple sclerosis is typically considered as an inflammatory disorder of the central nervous system with focal lesions affecting the white matter as captured with FLAIR imaging. However, other components of the disease are also known from post mortem and animal studies, but these are more difficult to assess on imaging. Continued developments of MR methods now allows us to gain more insight in such additional aspects of MS. In particular, grey matter alterations can be captured thanks to higher imaging resolution combined with sequences such as double inversion recovery (DIR) or white matter nulled T1. Furthermore, the diffuse and subtle modifications related to microglia activation outside focal lesions (so called “normal appearing parenchyma) can also be quantified with more precision thanks to approaches such as diffusion tensor imaging, inhomogeneous magnetization transfer (ihMT) or CEST imaging.