Displaying items by tag: CT

Ting-Yim Lee, PhD, FCCPM

Scientist, Robarts Research Institute

Medical Physicist, St. Josephs Health Care

Scientist, Lawson Health Research Institute

Professor, Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Medical Biophysics, Western University

Research Focus

My research interests include:

    Stroke: Accute stroke imaging using CT
    Heart Attack: Measurement of Myocardial blood flow using CT
    Cancer: Hypoxia imaging using CT

Robert deKemp, PhD, PEng, PPhys

Head Imaging Physicist, Cardiac Imaging, University of Ottawa Heart Institute

Associate Professor and Medical Scientist, Faculty of Medicine, Engineering, Physics, University of Ottawa

Adjunct Professor, Physics, Carleton University

Research Focus

My interest is in medical imaging physics and engineering, including Positron Emission Tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), X-ray computed tomography (CT), X-ray angiography, and multimodality image fusion.

My team and I are developing innovative tracer kinetic and statistical parametric methods for serial imaging of PET blood flow and metabolism, and 3-D fusion imaging of coronary angiography and myocardial perfusion. Past research in singles transmission for 3-D PET has greatly improved PET attenuation correction and is now a commercial standard for 3D PET in the world.

Working within the goal of CAIN2, Dr. Spence outlines the importance and methods towards outlining atherosclerosis patients would would benefit from intervention. It has been determined that those with microemboli and with greater than 3 ulcers benefit and that characteristics of individual plaque predicts outcome. CAIN2 strives to validate imaging methods for detection of vulnerable plaque.

While imaging is recognized as a useful tool to characterize atherosclerosis and its complications, there is a critical need to undertake large population studies to truly understand the natural history of the disease as well as the links between imaging biomarkers and patient outcomes.  This presentation outlines the objectives of CAIN3, which are to compare the extent of atherosclerosis, and rate of atherosclerosis progression in different vascular beds and to determine the correlation between imaging biomarkers and cardiovascular outcomes. 

Following the mandate of an ancient Chinese medical writing, Dr. Chow describes how it should be the goal of researchers and clinicians to learn to treat disease prior to its clinical presentation. Dr. Chow and his colleagues take aim at this goal by introducing cardiac CT that is able to detect previously undiscovered obstructive coronary disease and its potential as a modality that can identify poor outcome. Taking this further, investigators have asked if poor outcomes can be averted by treating disease before the patient is symptomatic.

Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, leader of the CAIN and MITNEC imaging networks, sets the stage with an overview of each network and how they are related. The networks, while varied in focus, strive to overcome key challenges of medical imaging research, learning to harness potential developments to improve clinical practice. As a good primer, this presentation is recommended to all ImagingKT members.

The ability to determine the functional significance of coronary stenosis and myocardium at risk in the clinical emergency setting is an important goal of myocardial perfusion studies. Here, Dr. Lee describes how perfusion is calculated from contrast CT imaging studies and describes the complications involved in these determinations and how they are corrected. The application of perfusion mapping for the clinical setting is also discussed.