An initiative featuring Professors Jelle Barentsz and Maurice van den Bosch, aiming to enhance MRI use in Low- and Middle-Income Countries for improved cancer care.
In recent years several Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) have implemented MRI for diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients because early diagnosis and accurate staging can improve patient outcome.
Inspire2Live has multiple contacts in many LMICs and has been asked to assist in order to improve MRI technical implementation and train radiologists in such a way that the quality of the interpretation and diagnosis improves.
The relationship between Inspire2Live and Professor Barentsz and Professor Van den Bosch goes back many years and in close consultation with them, we have chosen to work on the improvement of MR-image tuning and interpretation in several countries. This work will be carried out by a team of dedicated radiologists specialised in MRI, including Professor Barentsz and Professor van den Bosch themselves.
The proposed curriculum will last for 3 days including lectures on the following topics:
- How to acquire high-quality images for breast, cervical and prostate cancer
- PI-RADS v2.1 and beyond
- State-of-the-art MRI for breast cancer detection
- MRI-guided biopsy in breast, cervical and prostate cancer
- MRI in local (T) staging
- Utilising nano-particle MRI (Ferrotran) for the detection of 2 mm lymph node metastases (nodal (N) staging)
- MRI in detecting recurrences of prostate cancer (PIRR)
Training on local prostate MRI (PI-RADS v2.1), MRI for breast and cervical cancer detection and nano-particle MRI for nodal imaging will also be provided and during the remaining time, before and after the lectures, participants will be able to test their skills through interactive case discussions.
By the end of the course, participants will have gained sufficient knowledge to begin reading top quality breast, cervical and prostate MRI scans and certificates will be issued to individual radiologists upon successful completion of the curriculum.
