To serve all our members globally, SCMR will now base membership dues on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a member’s home country, using the official World Bank Categories. Members can sign up as a Regular, Technologist/Allied Health or Trainee member, and the dues will be based on either High Income, Upper Middle, Lower Middle or Low Income countries of residence. You can view Membership Tiers and pricing here.

More exciting global initiatives are being planned; thus we encourage you to renew your membership on September 1 in order to continue to take advantage of your SCMR benefits and opportunities.

Sincerely,

James Carr

President, SCMR

Back in June, we reflected on the success of the SPINS trial borne out of the SCMR Registry. The SCMR Registry Committee is accepting applications for its next round of Data Access requests. Applications are reviewed on a quarterly basis and the next deadline is October 1.

If you are interested in gaining access to the SCMR Registry database for your research project, please review the policy to learn how the process works.

To get started, submit a search request form here.

For more information regarding this process or participating in the SCMR Registry, visit the SCMR Registry webpage.

Three board positions to be filled for 2021 are: one (1) U.S. non-physician scientist, two (2) U.S. cardiologists, who will each serve three-year terms.

We will also be electing one (1) Early Career Member to the Board of Trustees (non-voting) to serve a one-year term. The selected candidate will also serve as the Chair of the SCMR Early Career Section. Applicants for this position should be either in training or less than 4 years post-training as of February 2021. There are no specialty or regional criteria. 

Former Board members are eligible for nomination at least two years after leaving office. You will find a list of all past and present Board members on the SCMR website.

Nominations must have the nominee’s agreement to run for the position.

Please submit your suggestions for nominees or self-nomination to hq@scmr.org by Friday, September 18, 2020.

This month, two studies in patients recently recovered from COVID-19 have signaled a potentially higher burden of cardiac involvement than initially suspected and for an extended period from the acute illness. Huang et al  studied 26 patients reporting cardiac symptoms following COVID-19 illness requiring hospitalization – they reported CMR abnormalities in 58%. Puntmann et al studied 100 patients that had recovered from COVD-19 illness but only a third had required hospitalization – they reported CMR abnormalities in 78%.

The results of both studies were striking – particularly data highlighting cardiac involvement in younger non-hospitalized patients as far out as 2 months after acute illness. Of note, in both papers, the headline figures for ‘CMR abnormalities’ (58% and 78%) included even subtle statistical differences compared to control groups across a range of CMR metrics (including LVEF, T1 mapping and T2 mapping) rather than all abnormal cases indicating clear-cut clinically significant myocarditis or definite late gadolinium enhancement abnormalities.

The results and methods of both studies are being discussed among the CMR community. In parallel, as reported in mainstream media, various sporting bodies and teams are beginning to consider the potential impact. Current guidelines in the United States recommend that athletes with probable or definite recent myocarditis (from any etiology) should not participate in competitive sports while active inflammation is present regardless of LVEF. European guidelines give similar recommendations on prohibiting competitive activity for athletes; however, they mandate a 6-month restriction before the disease process should be evaluated for resolution.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued proposed rules for the 2021 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS).

The OPPS governs technical component (TC) reimbursement (non-physician costs) for services provided in the outpatient setting. The PFS provides reimbursement for the professional component (PC) and some TC payments. Note that mandated cuts in spending are required under the PFS due to federal budget law.

For detailed information and SCMR’s analysis of reimbursement cuts and policy implications, see: https://scmr.org/news/523398/2021-Proposed-Medicare-Payment-Rules.htm

Congratulations to Warren J. Manning (editor-in-chief) and the entire JCMR editorial team. The 2019 impact factor (released at the end of June 2020) for JCMR, the official journal of SCMR, has increased from 5.1 to 5.361. The full metrics are detailed below and available on the journal’s website. Alongside this, we are grateful to our members for their high-quality submissions and their continued contribution to the peer-review process – all of which makes JCMR a success. A peer-reviewed journal would not survive without the generous time and insightful comments of the reviewers, whose efforts often go unrecognized - for these reasons, the editorial team publicly credits ‘Gold Star Reviewers.’  SCMR members receive the benefit of reduced article-processing charges in JCMR.

Ranking in Category “Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging”: 13 out of 133 (Q1)

Ranking in Category “Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems”: 23/138 (Q1)

Number of cites: 1,024

Number of source items: 191

Back in May, the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) and the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) launched an online survey to capture use of CMR is suspected COVID-19 cases around the globe.

We are making a push over the next month to record as much activity as possible before analysis begins- please contribute!

Each submission (one per scan) takes only five minutes and is entirely anonymous.

** Confirmed or high-probability COVID-19 cases can be included (regardless of test result)

** Both acute or recovery phase scans are eligible.

** You can also complete a survey for patients scanned in the past.

** Can easily be completed on your smartphone- just bookmark the page.

COVID-19 pandemia has significantly changed our personal and professional life. New York City represented one of the epicenters during the first wave with a substantial impact in our patients and cardiology practice. Physician redeployment, decrease in volume of cardiac cases, hospital economical burden and interruption of in-person lectures threatened our educational programs like never before. At Montefiore, together with Drs. Mario Garcia and Linda Haramati, we saw the opportunity of virtual lectures to maintain our commitment to education and increase the presence of world leaders in our meetings. We created a series of free virtual educational lectures on cardiac CT and CMR. Our goal is to allow our and other programs to preserve their education during these hard times and provide a skillset to start or improve CT and CMR programs all over the world. Supporting the cause, we immediately received an outstanding response from international leaders in the imaging community.

Lectures are every first and third Friday and last 40 minutes with an additional 20 minutes for questions. Some of our speakers include Stephan Achenbach, Daniel Berman, Chiara Bucciarelli-Ducci, Philipp Blanke, Matthew Budoff, Joao Cavalcante, Marcelo Di Carli, Marc Dweck, Marianna Fontana, Ruchira Garg, Hasan Jilaihawi, Jonathon Leipsic, Juan Lopez-Mattei, James Min, James Moon, Manish Motwani, Saman Nazarian, Philippe Pibarot, Gianluca Pontone, Armin Zadeh and others.

Anyone interested should email maudinot@montefiore.org to be added to the mailing list. In addition, all lectures will be on YouTube at Monte Heart Lectures.

The CMR service is now underway and already several challenging cases have been scanned across the full spectrum of cardiomyopathies, perfusion, viability assessment and congenital heart disease. This service provides a much-needed first-step for CMR in Bangladesh, but the challenges remain high. With a population of over 160 million, a substantial network of several CMR centres is clearly required throughout the country. Increased awareness of the value of CMR, infrastructure, technical expertise development and the developing national economy are the challenges to overcome in the upcoming years to ensure the success of this modality in Bangladesh.

2         fibrosis

3         body or surface

4         speed up (in parallel) ...often common

5         but the coronaries were normal!

7         plane

9         stressor

10      k-

12      The Enhancer

13      incline or cardiac ultrasound?

14      full thickness

15      recent inducible trial

16      bring on the darkness (as the right

time)