07. February 2022
AG member Nader Aldoj with a publication on fully automated quantification of prostate zones using magnetic resonance
Congratulations to our Team member Nader. Magnetic resonance elastography combined with Dense U-net segmentation allows tabulation of quantitative imaging markers without manual analysis and independent of other MRI sequences and can thus contribute to PCa detection and classification.
Quotes form abstract:
“Using trained network-based image segmentation, we investigated if Magnetic resonance elastography data is suffice to extract anatomical and viscoelastic information for automatic tabulation of zonal mechanical properties of the prostate.” “In conclusion, MRE combined with Dense U-net segmentation allows tabulation of quantitative imaging markers without manual analysis and independent of other MRI sequences and can thus contribute to PCa detection and classification.”
Read the whole article published in nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05878-5
28. January 2021
Prof. Dewey elected – congratulations!
The results of the 2022 ESR Electronic Elections are in! Congratulations to Andrea Rockall, Christian Loewe, Marion Smits and to our Prof. Marc Dewey on their new positions – Prof. Dewey was elected as the ESR Publications Committee Chair!
Find here the Detailed results of the ESR Electronic Elections 2022.
13. December 2021
AG member Philipp Karius finished dissertation
Philipp Karius, a member of our working group, has finished his dissertation. He examined in detail the relevance of extracardiac findings on Coronary CT. Its structured analysis is beneficial in many instances. On the one hand it offers the possibility to detect acute extracardiac pathologies as well as early-stage cancer. On the other hand it can help to find the cause of chest pain when a significant Coronary Artery Disease is ruled out. Hence, paying attention to extracardiac findings on coronary CT can contribute to more efficiency in diagnosis and treatment. The research resulted in three scientific papers: one was published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (JCCT) and another two papers were published in European Radiology (EUR).
The thesis was awarded with “magna cum laude”. Philipp Karius would like to deeply thank his supervisor Prof. Dr. Marc Dewey as well as Felix C. Sokolowski and all members of the working group for the inspiration and the exciting time. Meanwhile Philipp Karius works in the Department of Radiology of the Städtische Klinikum Dessau.
To find out more please follow the links below:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcct.2014.04.002
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-018-5688-4
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-018-5432-0
22. October 2021
First MD/PhD Dissertation
We are pleased to announce the first successful completion of an MD/PhD dissertation in our working group by our long-standing member Benjamin Kendziora. The dissertation deals with computed tomography for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease and magnetic resonance imaging for the quantification of saved myocardium after myocardial infarction. Four scientific papers were published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Radiology, the British Medical Journal Open (BMJ Open) and PLOS ONE as part of the dissertation. Additionally, Benjamin Kendziora presented research results on the conference of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago and the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna. In summary, the papers’ results suggest that CT angiography supplemented by CT perfusion can reliably and safely detect coronary stenoses and assess their functional relevance in patients with low to intermediate probability of coronary artery disease. It was also shown that magnetic resonance imaging allows the visualization of salvaged myocardium, allowing prognostic predictions to be made.
The thesis was awarded the highest grade “summa cum laude.” Benjamin Kendziora would like to thank his first supervisor Prof. Marc Dewey and his second supervisors Dr. Matthias Rief and Prof. Peter Schlattmann as well as the whole team of the research group for the educational and enjoyable time. In the meantime, Benjamin Kendziora is working at the Department of Dermatology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich as a resident physician in further training. We will continue to work together and look forward to upcoming scientific projects!
Please find more information on the publications below:
http://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i5441
http://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2017162447
http://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034359
http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228736
13. September 2021
First Aid Course by Promotionskolleg member Alina
Today it was the time to freshen up our rescuing skills. Alina, which happens to be a tutor of the Charité Promotionskolleg and also a first aid course instructor, reminded us on how to react properly in emergency situations, where every second counts!
Resuscitation was of course on the menu (you remember: 5cm + 30:2 + “Staying alive” 😉 as well as bandaging. Lots of fun and feeling ready for a situation like this! Thank you very much Alina!
12. July 2021
New publication on fully automated quantification of prostate elasticity
Our @team_dewey group member Nader Aldoj just submitted his work to #arxiv by the Cornell University. This research has been done with the help of our colleagues Federico, Anja, Patrick and Ingolf and funded by @dfg_public.
Abstract:
Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) for measuring viscoelasticity heavily depends on proper tissue segmentation, especially in heterogeneous organs such as the prostate. Using trained network-based image segmentation, we investigated if MRE data suffice to extract anatomical and viscoelastic information for automatic tabulation of zonal mechanical properties of the prostate. Overall, 40 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) or prostate cancer (PCa) were examined with three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences: T2-weighted MRI (T2w), diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and MRE-based tomoelastography yielding six independent sets of imaging data per patient (T2w, DWI, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), MRE magnitude, shear wave speed, and loss angle maps).
06. July 2021
Interested in a doctoral thesis on medical imaging using #fractalanalysis?
Announcement Student Assistant 40h/month
We are looking for energetic support for our team in the EU-funded pan-European and multicenter DISCHARGE study. It is a pragmatic randomized controlled trial comparing effectiveness of cardiac CT with cardiac catheterization in patients with stable chest pain and suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). The study will include a cost analysis for which we are seeking medical students with an interest in this topic area as well as a PhD.
We are offering a position as a student assistant based on 40 hours per month for a minimum of 6 months starting immediately. Our office is located at the central campus. We are looking for motivated students who are interested in clinical trials, enjoy working in a team and are willing to take on responsible tasks and ideally have some prior experience in medical cost reporting.
Your tasks:
- Support of the cost team
- Literature research
- Data preparation
- Communication with participating study centers and responsible project partners.
We are looking for:
- Medical students with interest in pursuing a PhD
- Ideally previous experience in the field of medical cost recording
We offer:
- As a coordinating center of the EU-funded multicenter DISCHARGE study, an interdisciplinary team at the Campus Mitte.
- Remuneration according to the collective agreement for student assistants 40h/month for 6 months
- Working hours can be arranged flexibly according to our core working hours.
If you are interested or have any questions, please send your application by mail to: discharge.eu@charite.de
Further information about the study: https://www.dischargetrial.eu/de/
15. June 2021
New publication: Subanalysis on CTA vs. ICA on patients with atypical angina
Detection of relevant extracardiac findings on coronary computed tomography angiography vs. invasive coronary angiography.
While both coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) and invasive coronary angiography (ICA) are well-established methods for the assessment of cardiac and coronary anatomy, they visualize also surrounding structures, such as lungs, mediastinum, and upper abdomen, leading to detection of extracardiac findings (ECFs). We performed a subanalysis of clinically relevant ECFs on CTA versus ICA in patients with atypical angina and suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) based on data from our randomized controlled CAD-Man trial. Our study showed that CTA detects ten times more clinically relevant ECFs than ICA. Some of those ECFs detected by CTA (13%) were identified as explaining patients’ chest pain and may thus affect management and therapy and consequently improve quality of life. Detection of ECFs explaining chest pain on CTA might also preclude the need for performing ICA, which is invasive and associated with more procedural complications than CTA.
Read more: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00330-021-07967-x.pdf
12. June 2021
Finally there: all pictures from our perspectives meeting / team building event
See more: marcdewey.de/excursions
10. June 2021
Method for characterizing perfusion abnormalities by means of fractal analysis of the interface region
Dr. Florian Michallek just released details of our patent on #fractal analysis of perfusion imaging based on self-similarities often found in nature. A great example is the romanesco broccoli also exhibiting scale-invariant self-similarity. We apply fractal analysis to #CT and #MRI.
09. June 2021
Collaboarative Article released on “Audio-guided self-hypnosis for reduction of claustrophobia during MR imaging”
Great work by Dr. Adriane Napp and Torsten Diekhoff from our Department of Radiology as equal first authors in collaboration with amazing Olf Stoiber from Hypnovita (München). Special thanks also go to Judith Enders, Gerd Diederichs (Department of Radiology) and Peter Martus (Universitätsklinikum Tübingen). Their article “Audio-guided self-hypnosis for reduction of claustrophobia during MR imaging” has been published successfully on April 17th, 2021 by European Radiology. A summarizing podcast has been written by Torsten Diekhoff and an editorial about the topic in European Radiology.
About 10% of the patients undergoing MRI experience a claustrophobic event which is defined by the need for either sedation or other coping actions to complete the examination. Incomplete examinations due to claustrophobia are also regarded as an event. The use of audio-guided self-hypnosis enabled the reduction of events by half. Thus, this approach is very promising to follow-up on for managing claustrophobia during MRI.
The article can be found under: Article (springer.com)
The editorial can be found under: Editorial Springer Link
The podcast can be found under: Podcast/ Twitter
05. June 2021
Effects of cardiac CT on statin intake and cholesterol levels
Sub- analysis of the randomized controlled CAD-Man trial on the effect of coronary CT angiography on statin adherence published by Sarah Feger and Laura Elzenbeck in JACC Cardiovascular Imaging.
The study showed that an intervention based on computed tomography versus invasive coronary angiography resulted in improved statin adherence and cholesterol levels.
After a median follow-up of 3.3 years, more patients in the CTA group compared with the ICA group (60% versus 39%) reported to be on statin therapy. Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels were decreased in the CT group (decrease by 22.6% and 35.5%), but increased in the ICA group (by 19.8% and 28.9%).
01. June 2021
Prof. Dewey interviewed about confidant role
Not only to ensure the high quality of dissertations or to prevent doctoral students from dropping out, the Charité has created several offers to support doctoral students and supervisors. These also include the activities of the confidant in a short interview, Professor Dr. Marc Dewey, deputy director of the Institute of Radiology at the Charité Campus Mitte, tells us what their tasks as confidants include (Article in German language)
(Click to enlarge article)
Thank you for the interview.
19. May 2021
Prof. Dewey interviewed by Zeit on Hypnosis vs. Anesthesia
“Germany’s best-known university hospital is experimenting with hypnosis techniques. In the ZEIT WISSEN podcast, the doctors report on their initial findings.”
Prof. Dewey in the “Zeit Wissen” Podcast about research on Hypnosis as a Anesthesia alternative.
Read & listen more:
Hypnose: Hypnose statt Narkose – funktioniert das? | ZEIT ONLINE
28. January 2021
AuntMinnie nominates Prof. Dewey as a finalist!
Congratualations to Prof. Dewey as being chosen by the number one medical imaging community as a finalist for the most influential radiologist! Fully deserved!
07. January 2021
A New Family Member!
The entire workinggroup sends our big congratulations to our dear member Heli on her 4th kid! We find it Wonderful and hope to see it live, as soon as the situation allows. Of course we hope the new AG-baby will step into its mothers footsteps and become a great medical doctor or scientist as her mother!
Prof. Dewey wishes Heli all the best and is also looking forward to see the our new member on our weekly online meetings.
See you soon!
17. December 2020
Thank you for this lovely gift from one of our students
A great gift from our student Helene Wunderlich who put time and effort into this little CT model as a little thank you present to Prof. Dewey and Viktoria Wieske who supervised Helene during her time in our group.
Thank you for this lovely and creative present. And thank you for your work in our group and inside the Discharge-Team!
10. December 2020
New European Journal of Radiology publication: Can CT help in patients with obscure infections?
Our working group Member Dr. Julian Pohlan just published a research in the European Journal of Radiology on predicting possible sources of infections.
Results:
In 133 out of 196 (67.9 %) body CTs from general wards with severe infection or sepsis, body CT identified an infectious focus. 90 % of the infections were located in the chest, abdomen, and genitourinary tract, in descending order. In 76.5 % (150 of 196) of examinations, CT correctly predicted the final infectious source. The positive predictive value (PPV) of a CT-detected focus was 84.2 % (95 % CI 79.0%-88.3%).
Read more about this research in the European Journal of Radiology.
Congratulations to Dr. Pohlan!
04. September 2020
MRI for measuring therapy efficiency after revascularisation in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction
In this systematic review and meta-analysis, Benjamin Kendziora et al. analysed whether myocardial resonance imaging can be used to measure therapeutic efficiency after myocardial infarction. Indeed, the data suggest that the myocardial salvage index calculated by quantifying post-infarctional myocardial oedema and necrosis with myocardial resonance imaging provides information on therapeutic efficiency.
Future research in the field will be interesting, particularly with regard to mapping of the heart by myocardial resonance imaging, which increases comparability across hardware and software systems.
The work is freely available here:
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/9/e034359
29. September 2020
A collaborative meta-analysis of the clinical usefulness of coronary CT angiography
Viktoria Wieske and Marc Dewey jointly provided a review article for the summer issue of the Diagnostic Imaging Europe Magazine about our worldwide COME-CCT Consortium and the primary results published in BMJ last year lead by our working group colleague Robert Haase. Following our main analysis publication and especially in regards to the new European Guideline on chronic coronary syndrome we are currently very much looking forward to more interesting and exciting publications from our COME-CCT project to come soon. Stay tuned!
The review article in Diagnostic Imaging Europe can be found here:
https://www.dieurope.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DIEurope-JuneJuly-2020.pdf
15. September 2020
Insights into clinical pre-test probability for CAD
Our working group member Dr. Sarah Feger just released the results of her work – we’d like to congratulate on that!
The objective of this paper was nothing less, than to test the accuracy of clinical pre-test probability (PTP) for prediction of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) in a pan-European setting. In total, 1440 patients (654 female, 786 male) were included at 25 clinical sites from May 2014 until July 2017.
Outcome:
• Clinical pre-test probability calculation using the initial and updated D+F model overestimates the prevalence of obstructive CAD identified by ICA and CT.
• Overestimation of disease prevalence is higher for the initial D+F compared with the updated D+F.
• Diagnostic accuracy of PTP assessment varies strongly between different clinical sites throughout Europe.
Read the full paper here.
04. September 2020
Patient preferences for development in MRI scanner design: a survey of claustrophobic patients in a randomized study
Claustrophobia is a common problem in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)-examinations: up to 10% of patients suffer from it. Finding satisfying solutions for prevention and management of claustrophia in MRI-exams remains a challenge.
So what do claustrophobic patients themselves suggest to improve their MRI-experience? We asked claustrophobic patients as part of a randmozied controlled trial what MRI-scanner design they prefer.
Our results:
Patients at high risk to experience claustrophobia in the MRI want open as opposed to closed scanner bore-designs.
They want less noise during the examination.
And interestingly, they show an increased acceptance of closed-bore MRI-designs, if they are specifically educated about the higher diagnostic performance of this design.
This information can be useful for referral of claustrophobic patients as well as future scanner development.
01. September 2020
Automatic prostate segmentation
A new step toward an improved automatic prostate and zones segmentation. This piece of work discusses a new neural network architecture (Dense 2 U-net) based on the state-of-the-art U-net, and highlights its pros, cons and added values.
We trained the algorithm on 141 patient datasets and tested it on 47 patient datasets using axial T2-weighted images in a four-fold cross-validation fashion. The networks were trained and tested on weakly and accurately annotated masks separately to test the hypothesis that the network can learn even when the labels are not accurate.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71080-0
21. August 2020
Department of Radiology at Charité Awarded Platinum
On August 21st 2020, the Department of Radiology at Charité became the first German department to have been awarded a platinum certificate of the European Training Assessment Program (ETAP) of the European Board of Radiology (EBR). This is a Europe-wide standardized certification which has been accredited to our radiology training program.
Departments accredited with the platinum award – the highest possible attainable certificate – are for those aligned to the European Society of Radiology (ESR) European Training Curriculum, characterized by the availability of specialized advanced training staff, excellent and personal supervision of advanced training residents, a mentoring program, excellent training in emergency radiology, the involvement of residents in interdisciplinary team meetings, and the opportunity to work in science, management, and leadership roles, among other criteria.
27. June 2020
Summer excursion: Nikolaiviertel + coffee tasting
On a very summery day in June, the Dewey workgroup started an excursion to the beginnings of the city of Berlin. But not without first having an energizing espresso tasting. Wild Espresso Coffee from Punjab served as the starting signal for this excursion. Rolf Gänsrich, journalist, freelance author and connoisseur of Berlin’s history, guided us through the Nikolai Quarter, which belongs to the oldest core of the city and under which the roots of Berlin’s settlement lie. The tour ended with a visit to the old city wall of Berlin, whose remains from the 13th century are still partly preserved, and the imposing ruins of the Franciscan monastery church.
Thanks to all participants for a fun and interesting time, we are looking forward to next year!
