John Symanski, MD recently joined the Department of Radiology as an Assistant Professor (CHS) in the Musculoskeletal Imaging and Intervention section. Continue reading to learn more about Dr. Symanski. 

Q: Where are you from? 

A: Milwaukee area 

Q: Where did you attend medical school? 

A: Medical College of Wisconsin 

Q: Why did you choose radiology? 

A: I’ve enjoyed imaging ever since starting clinical rotations in medical school.  I also like doing procedures, so radiology was a good fit. 

Q: What is your specialty? 

A: MSK radiology 

Q: What are your professional interests? 

A: Ultrasound guided procedures, particularly nerve blocks; education, including 3D models; sports medicine; MSK oncologic imaging and procedures.   

Q: Why did you choose UW/What are you most excited about? 

A: I chose UW because of the strength of the faculty and the strength of it as a teaching facility. That strength describes working with colleagues in clinical, education, and research. It really is everything you could want in one section! 

Q: What are your hobbies? 

A: All my hobbies are hindered right now due to my 2-, 3-, and 5-year-old children, but I love exercise and traveling in the tropics and scuba diving. I love all the Wisconsin sports teams – Brewers, Bucks, Badgers, and Packers. 

Guang-Hong Chen, PhD and Timothy Ziemlewicz, MD both received R01 grants in the month of September. 

Guang-Hong Chen received a $3,100,000 grant for his project, “Hunting for the lost spectral fingerprints in chest CT exams using artificial intelligence (AI),” from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institute of Health (NIH) to be used by 2025. The goal of this project is to develop a groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) method to extract the previously overlooked spectral information inherently encoded in the routinely acquired contrast enhanced chest CT exams. Their overarching objective of the project is to generate the desired pulmonary perfusion imaging information directly from the currently available single kV pulmonary CTA data without the need for high-end dual energy CT scanners and with no additional radiation dose to patients, but with reduced artifacts (See clinical examples in Figure).   

Example A: Deep-En-Chroma spectral CT perfusion map help assess the functional defects in lung parenchyma as confirmed by pulmonary CT angiography.  

Example B, compared with the hardware-based GE fast-kV switching DECT method, AI based spectral CT method shows reduced image artifacts. 

The team for this project includes Guang-Hong Chen, PhD (Radiology & Medical Physics), Ke Li, PhD (Radiology & Medical Physics), and Thomas Grist, MD, FACR (Radiology & Medical Physics). Other key study team members include Steve Cho, MD (Radiology), John W. Garrett, PhD (Radiology & Medical Physics), Yinsheng Li (Medical Physics), and Mike Speidel, PhD (Medical Physics). 

Timothy Ziemlewicz received a $2,500,000 grant for his project, “Developing Methods for Precise, Safe, and Target-location Specific Histotripsy of Liver Tumors” to be used by 2026. The goal of this project is to expand indications for histotripsy by investigating treatment in critical locations that currently have limited treatment options. This will be done by developing techniques to control for respiratory motion and determining a dose which will kill tumors while being safe for collagen-containing critical structures. In addition, the team will develop a pig model capable of growing human tumor cell lines in select locations, which will be a critical model for interventional oncology research and validating the developments of this grant prior to human use.  

Co-investigators on the grant include: Fred Lee, MD; Paul Laeseke, MD, PhD; Scott Reeder, MD, PhD;  Scott Nagle, MD, PhD, Martin Wagner, PhD (Medical Physics), Xiaofei Zhang, MD, PhD (Pathology), and Tatiana Henriques Ferreira, DVM, MSC, PhD (Veterinary Medicine). The team is also working with additional co-investigators from Virginia Tech, Eli Vlaisavljevich and Coy Allen, and from the University of Michigan, Tim Hall. 

Dr. Ziemlewicz said, “Our group is very gratified for the recognition of the importance this work and is excited to further our work translating this groundbreaking technology for our patients.” 

Congratulations Drs. Chen and Ziemlewicz! 

Donna Juno, Senior CT Imaging Specialist, retired in September after 35 years of service at UW Health. Courtney Goetsch, CT Tech, reflects fondly on Donna’s time in the Department. “We all enjoyed working with Donna as she was extremely knowledgeable about our department, and really anything hospital–related. She was always there to answer your questions and assist in teaching you. In her 30+ years of service, she was a mentor and teacher to each and every tech who worked here. We will especially miss her positive attitude and her caring nature….’Mama Donna’ is what we used to call her…which shows just how kindhearted she was to all of us. Our CT team is grateful to have been able to work alongside her for all these years.” A heartfelt thanks to Donna for her decades of service to the Department and the CT Team! 

Paul Ramirez, a Programmer Analyst on the RadWeb team, placed 15th overall and 4th in his age group at the Lake Geneva Fontana Triathlon on September 15, 2021. He completed the Olympic distance (1-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike, and 6.2-mile run) in 2 hours and 26 minutes. “It felt nice getting 15th overall. I felt like I managed my energy well. There were times during the swim and bike that I told myself to slow down to reserve energy for the run,” says Ramirez. He participated alongside former resident, Lara Mrak, who competed in the sprint distance. 

Paul is now setting his sights on his fifth Ironman in June 2022. The Ironman course follows a 2.4-mile swim in Lake Monona, followed by a 112-mile bike ride through south central Wisconsin, ending in a 26.2-mile run course. “For Ironman 2022, I hope to have fun with it and enjoy the experience. I don’t consider myself someone who trains or exercises. I like being active and find Ironman a chance to express that,” says Ramirez.

Li, J., Hacker, T.A., Wei, H., Long, Y., Yang, F., Ni, D., Rodgers, A., Cai, W., Wang, X. Long-term in vivo operation of implanted cardiac nanogenerators in swine. Nano Energy, 90, art. no. 106507, (2021).  

Petterson, M.B., Longhurst, C., Yu, J.-P.J. Measuring interdisciplinarity of biomedical research, medical specialty performance, and implications for radiology: A retrospective review of 2.6 million citations. Clinical Imaging, 80, pp. 322-328 (2021). 

Schilling, K.G., Rheault, F., Petit, L., Hansen, C.B., Nath, V., Yeh, F.-C., Girard, G., Barakovic, M., Rafael-Patino, J., Yu, T., Fischi-Gomez, E., Pizzolato, M., Ocampo-Pineda, M., Schiavi, S., Canales-Rodríguez, E.J., Daducci, A., Granziera, C., Innocenti, G., Thiran, J.-P., Mancini, L., Wastling, S., Cocozza, S., Petracca, M., Pontillo, G., Mancini, M., Vos, S.B., Vakharia, V.N., Duncan, J.S., Melero, H., Manzanedo, L., Sanz-Morales, E., Peña-Melián, Á., Calamante, F., Attyé, A., Cabeen, R.P., Korobova, L., Toga, A.W., Vijayakumari, A.A., Parker, D., Verma, R., Radwan, A., Sunaert, S., Emsell, L., De Luca, A., Leemans, A., Bajada, C.J., Haroon, H., Azadbakht, H., Chamberland, M., Genc, S., Tax, C.M.W., Yeh, P.-H., Srikanchana, R., Mcknight, C.D., Yang, J.Y.-M., Chen, J., Kelly, C.E., Yeh, C.-H., Cochereau, J., Maller, J.J., Welton, T., Almairac, F., Seunarine, K.K., Clark, C.A., Zhang, F., Makris, N., Golby, A., Rathi, Y., O’Donnell, L.J., Xia, Y., Aydogan, D.B., Shi, Y., Fernandes, F.G., Raemaekers, M., Warrington, S., Michielse, S., Ramírez-Manzanares, A., Concha, L., Aranda, R., Meraz, M.R., Lerma-Usabiaga, G., Roitman, L., Fekonja, L.S., Calarco, N., Joseph, M., Nakua, H., Voineskos, A.N., Karan, P., Grenier, G., Legarreta, J.H., Adluru, N., Nair, V.A., Prabhakaran, V., Alexander, A.L., Kamagata, K., Saito, Y., Uchida, W., Andica, C., Abe, M., Bayrak, R.G., Wheeler-Kingshott, C.A.M.G., D’Angelo, E., Palesi, F., Savini, G., Rolandi, N., Guevara, P., Houenou, J., López-López, N., Mangin, J.-F., Poupon, C., Román, C., Vázquez, A., Maffei, C., Arantes, M., Andrade, J.P., Silva, S.M., Calhoun, V.D., Caverzasi, E., Sacco, S., Lauricella, M., Pestilli, F., Bullock, D., Zhan, Y., Brignoni-Perez, E., Lebel, C., Reynolds, J.E., Nestrasil, I., Labounek, R., Lenglet, C., Paulson, A., Aulicka, S., Heilbronner, S.R., Heuer, K., Chandio, B.Q., Guaje, J., Tang, W., Garyfallidis, E., Raja, R., Anderson, A.W., Landman, B.A., Descoteaux, M. Tractography dissection variability: What happens when 42 groups dissect 14 white matter bundles on the same dataset?. NeuroImage, 243, art. no. 118502, (2021).  

 Stratchko, L., Rosas, H. Imaging of Elbow Injuries. Clinics in Sports Medicine, 40 (4), pp. 601-623 (2021).  

Scribano, C.M., Wan, J., Esbona, K., Tucker, J.B., Lasek, A., Zhou, A.S., Zasadil, L.M., Molini, R., Fitzgerald, J., Lager, A.M., Laffin, J.J., Correia-Staudt, K., Wisinski, K.B., Tevaarwerk, A.J., O’Regan, R., McGregor, S.M., Fowler, A.M., Chappell, R.J., Bugni, T.S., Burkard, M.E., Weaver, B.A. Chromosomal instability sensitizes patient breast tumors to multipolar divisions induced by paclitaxel. Science Translational Medicine, 13 (610), art. no. eabd4811, (2021).  

Feng, M., Ji, X., Zhang, R., Treb, K., Dingle, A.M., Li, K. An experimental method to correct low-frequency concentric artifacts in photon counting CT. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 66 (17), art. no. 175011, (2021).  

Krieger, J.R., Lee, F.T., McCormick, T., Ziemlewicz, T.J., Hinshaw, J.L., Wells, S.A., Laeseke, P.E., Stratchko, L., Alexander, M., Hedican, S.P., Best, S.L., Borza, T., Nakada, S.Y., Abel, E.J. Microwave Ablation of Renal Cell Carcinoma. Journal of Endourology, 35 (S2), pp. S33-S37 (2021).  

Sugi, M.D., Kawashima, A., Salomao, M.A., Bhalla, S., Venkatesh, S.K., Pickhardt, P.J. Amyloidosis: Multisystem spectrum of disease with pathologic correlation. Radiographics, 41 (5), pp. 1454-1474 (2021).  

Zlevor, A.M., Mauch, S.C., Knott, E.A., Pickhardt, P.J., Mankowski Gettle, L., Mao, L., Meyer, C.A., Hartung, M.P., Kim, D.H., Lubner, M.G., Hinshaw, J.L., Foltz, M.L., Ziemlewicz, T.J., Lee, F.T., Jr. Percutaneous Lung Biopsy with Pleural and Parenchymal Blood Patching: Results and Complications from 1,112 Core Biopsies. Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, 32 (9), pp. 1319-1327 (2021).   

Kusmirek, J.E., Wieben, O. Coronary endothelial wall shear stress: Another piece of the puzzle? Radiology, 300 (3), pp. 557-558 (2021).  

Sadowski, E., Maturen, K.E., Rockall, A., Reinhold, C., Addley, H., Jha, P., Bharwani, N., Thomassin-Naggara, I. Ovary: MRI characterisation and O-RADS MRI. British Journal of Radiology, 94 (1125), art. no. 20210157, (2021).  

 Eisenmenger, L.B., Sawatzky, B.D., Manunga, J.M., Sosman, J.M., Rowley, H.A., Kuner, A.D. Progressive Neurologic Symptoms in the Setting of HIV: A Rare Case of Neurosymptomatic CSF HIV Escape. Neurology, 97 (8), pp. 389-390 (2021).  

Young, K.G., Regnault, T.R.H., Guglielmo, C.G. Extraordinarily rapid proliferation of cultured muscle satellite cells from migratory birds. Biology Letters, 17 (8), art. no. 20210200, (2021).   

Bhatt, A.A., Kurtz, R.M., Kennedy, T.A., Miller-Thomas, M.M., Anderson, J.C., Edgar, L., Wood, C.P. The updated neuroradiology milestones: Synapsing from 1.0 to 2.0. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 42 (8), pp. E48-E52 (2021).   

Voter, A.F., Larson, M.E., Garrett, J.W., Yu, J.-P.J. Diagnostic accuracy and failure mode analysis of a deep learning algorithm for the detection of cervical spine fractures. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 42 (8), pp. 1550-1556 (2021).  

Knott, E.A., Ziemlewicz, T.J., Lubner, S.J., Swietlik, J.F., Weber, S.M., Zlevor, A.M., Longhurst, C., Hinshaw, J.L., Lubner, M.G., Mulkerin, D.L., Abbott, D.E., Deming, D., LoConte, N.K., Uboha, N., Couillard, A.B., Wells, S.A., Laeseke, P.F., Alexander, M.L., Lee Jr, F.T. Microwave ablation for colorectal cancer metastasis to the liver: A single-center retrospective analysis. Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology, 12 (4), pp. 1454-1469 (2021).  

Colbert, M.K., Ho, L.C., van der Merwe, Y., Yang, X., McLellan, G.J., Hurley, S.A., Field, A.S., Yun, H., Du, Y., Conner, I.P., Parra, C., Faiq, M.A., Fingert, J.H., Wollstein, G., Schuman, J.S., Chan, K.C. Diffusion tensor imaging of visual pathway abnormalities in five glaucoma animal models. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 62 (10), art. no. 21, (2021).   

Sandfort, V., Yan, K., Graffy, P.M., Pickhardt, P.J., Summers, R.M. Use of variational autoencoders with unsupervised learning to detect incorrect organ segmentations at ct. Radiology: Artificial Intelligence, 3 (4), art. no. e200218, (2021).  

Corrado, P.A., Barton, G.P., Razalan-Krause, F.C., François, C.J., Chesler, N.C., Wieben, O., Eldridge, M., McMillan, A.B., Goss, K.N. Dynamic fdg pet imaging to probe for cardiac metabolic remodeling in adults born premature. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10 (6), art. no. 1301, pp. 1-14 (2021).  

Barton, G.P., Corrado, P.A., Francois, C.J., Chesler, N.C., Eldridge, M.W., Wieben, O., Goss, K.N. Exaggerated cardiac contractile response to hypoxia in adults born preterm. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10 (6), art. no. 1166, pp. 1-14 (2021).  

Torres-Velazquez, M., Chen, W.-J., Li, X., McMillan, A.B. Application and Construction of Deep Learning Networks in Medical Imaging. IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences, 5 (2), art. no. 9222094, pp. 137-159 (2021).   

Simchick, G., Zhao, R., Hamilton, G., Reeder, S.B., Hernando, D. Spectroscopy-based multi-parametric quantification in subjects with liver iron overload at 1.5T and 3T. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, (2021).   

Liu, Z., Zhang, J., Jog, V., Loh, P.-L., McMillan, A.B. Robustifying Deep Networks for Medical Image Segmentation. Journal of Digital Imaging, (2021).  

Dayan, I., Roth, H.R., Zhong, A., Harouni, A., Gentili, A., Abidin, A.Z., Liu, A., Costa, A.B., Wood, B.J., Tsai, C.-S., Wang, C.-H., Hsu, C.-N., Lee, C.K., Ruan, P., Xu, D., Wu, D., Huang, E., Kitamura, F.C., Lacey, G., de Antônio Corradi, G.C., Nino, G., Shin, H.-H., Obinata, H., Ren, H., Crane, J.C., Tetreault, J., Guan, J., Garrett, J.W., Kaggie, J.D., Park, J.G., Dreyer, K., Juluru, K., Kersten, K., Rockenbach, M.A.B.C., Linguraru, M.G., Haider, M.A., AbdelMaseeh, M., Rieke, N., Damasceno, P.F., e Silva, P.M.C., Wang, P., Xu, S., Kawano, S., Sriswasdi, S., Park, S.Y., Grist, T.M., Buch, V., Jantarabenjakul, W., Wang, W., Tak, W.Y., Li, X., Lin, X., Kwon, Y.J., Quraini, A., Feng, A., Priest, A.N., Turkbey, B., Glicksberg, B., Bizzo, B., Kim, B.S., Tor-Díez, C., Lee, C.-C., Hsu, C.-J., Lin, C., Lai, C.-L., Hess, C.P., Compas, C., Bhatia, D., Oermann, E.K., Leibovitz, E., Sasaki, H., Mori, H., Yang, I., Sohn, J.H., Murthy, K.N.K., Fu, L.-C., de Mendonça, M.R.F., Fralick, M., Kang, M.K., Adil, M., Gangai, N., Vateekul, P., Elnajjar, P., Hickman, S., Majumdar, S., McLeod, S.L., Reed, S., Gräf, S., Harmon, S., Kodama, T., Puthanakit, T., Mazzulli, T., de Lavor, V.L., Rakvongthai, Y., Lee, Y.R., Wen, Y., Gilbert, F.J., Flores, M.G., Li, Q. Federated learning for predicting clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Nature Medicine, (2021).  

Tendler, B.C., Qi, F., Foxley, S., Pallebage-Gamarallage, M., Menke, R.A.L., Ansorge, O., Hurley, S.A., Miller, K.L. A method to remove the influence of fixative concentration on postmortem T2 maps using a kinetic tensor model. Human Brain Mapping, (2021).  

Jambor, A.N., Shelton, E.M., Kijowski, R., Henak, C.R., Campagnola, P.J. Assessing collagen alterations in enzymatic degradation models of osteoarthritis via second harmonic generation microscopy. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, (2021).  

Mickevicius, N.J., Kim, J.P., Zhao, J., Morris, Z.S., Hurst, N.J., Jr., Glide-Hurst, C.K. Toward magnetic resonance fingerprinting for low-field MR-guided radiation therapy. Medical Physics, (2021).  

Reeder, S.B. Editorial for “Effects of B1 Heterogeneity on Spin Echo-Based Liver Iron Estimates”. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, (2021).  

Chen, W., Li, M., Younis, M.H., Barnhart, T.E., Jiang, D., Sun, T., Lang, J.M., Engle, J.W., Zhou, M., Cai, W. ImmunoPET of trophoblast cell-surface antigen 2 (Trop-2) expression in pancreatic cancer. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, (2021).  

Kaufman, C., Little, N.A. Pelvic Congestion Syndrome: A Missed Opportunity. Indian Journal of Radiology and Imaging, (2021).   

Jiang, D., Younis, M.H., Lan, X., Cai, W. High-performance renal imaging with a radiolabeled, non-excretable chimeric fusion protein. Theranostics, 11 (18), pp. 9177-9179 (2021).   

Zhang, C., Li, Y., Chen, G.-H. Accurate and robust sparse-view angle CT image reconstruction using deep learning and prior image constrained compressed sensing (DL-PICCS). Medical Physics, (2021).  

Niedbalski, P.J., Hall, C.S., Castro, M., Eddy, R.L., Rayment, J.H., Svenningsen, S., Parraga, G., Zanette, B., Santyr, G.E., Thomen, R.P., Stewart, N.J., Collier, G.J., Chan, H.-F., Wild, J.M., Fain, S.B., Miller, G.W., Mata, J.F., Mugler, J.P., III, Driehuys, B., Willmering, M.M., Cleveland, Z.I., Woods, J.C. Protocols for multi-site trials using hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI for imaging of ventilation, alveolar-airspace size, and gas exchange: A position paper from the 129Xe MRI clinical trials consortium. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, (2021).  

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Nagpal, P., Siembida, J.M., Nagle, S.K., Priya, S. Left ventricular assist device pseudo-thrombosis due to use of metal artifact reduction algorithm on cardiac CT. Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, (2021).  

Wagner, M.G., Periyasamy, S., Longhurst, C., McLachlan, M.J., Whitehead, J.F., Speidel, M.A., Laeseke, P.F. Real-time respiratory motion compensated roadmaps for hepatic arterial interventions. Medical Physics, (2021).   

Shin, D.S., Monroe, E.J., Bertino, F.J., Abad-Santos, M., Abajian, A., Chick, J.F.B. Portomesenteric Venous Thrombectomy Using Inari Triever Aspiration Catheter (FlowTriever). CardioVascular and Interventional Radiology, (2021).   

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Wang, C., Reeder, S.B., Hernando, D. Relaxivity-iron calibration in hepatic iron overload: Reproducibility and extension of a Monte Carlo model. NMR in Biomedicine, (2021).  

Nayor, M., Shen, L., Hunninghake, G.M., Kochunov, P., Barr, R.G., Bluemke, D.A., Broeckel, U., Caravan, P., Cheng, S., De Vries, P.S., Hoffmann, U., Kolossváry, M., Li, H., Luo, J., McNally, E.M., Thanassoulis, G., Arnett, D.K., Vasan, R.S. Progress and Research Priorities in Imaging Genomics for Heart and Lung Disease: Summary of an NHLBI Workshop. Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, art. no. e012943, (2021).  

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Moody, J.F., Adluru, N., Alexander, A.L., Field, A.S. The connectomes: Methods of white matter tractography and contributions of resting state fMRI. Seminars in Ultrasound, CT and MRI, (2021).  

Bracken, R.L., Harringa, J.B., Markhardt, B.K., Kim, N., Park, J.K., Kitchin, D.R., Robbins, J.B., Ziemlewicz, T.J., Birstler, J., Ryan, M.J., Hoang, L., Pickhardt, P.J., Reeder, S.B., Repplinger, M.D. Correction to: Abdominal fellowship-trained versus generalist radiologist accuracy when interpreting MR and CT for the diagnosis of appendicitis. European Radiology, (2021).  

 

Photo (left): Histotripsy Summit held at the University of Michigan in September 2019. Photo (right): Representation of histotripsy bubble cloud destroying targeted liver tumors non-invasively and without heat or ionizing radiation (animation provided by Histosonics. Inc.) 

Several members of the Department of Radiology, including Fred Lee, MD, Paul Laeseke, MD, PhD, and Timothy Ziemlewicz, MD, have been conducting pre-clinical research on histotripsy, a new non-invasive, non-thermal method to destroy tumors and other tissue, for more than 5 years. “Histotripsy is a novel technology based on external ultrasound that was invented at the University of Michigan. Our friends in Michigan were generous enough to lend us devices to use in our laboratory in human-size pigs, and since then, we have been working to make histotripsy a clinical reality,” explains Dr. Lee. 

This work has been supported over the years by HistoSonics Inc. “The scientific work started at the University of Michigan, and still goes on there, but translating this work into large models simulating human use, developing the procedure, and refining the technology has happened to a great extent at Wisconsin,” says Josh King, Vice President of Marketing at HistoSonics. In addition to supporting the pre-clinical research behind the method, HistoSonics also sponsors ongoing clinical trials evaluating histotripsy safety and efficacy for patients with liver tumors. 

The next step in the bench-to-bedside path for histotripsy is the new #HOPE4LIVER clinical trial. The trial is currently recruiting patients to treat primary and metastatic liver tumors using histotripsy with the goals of demonstrating the safety of the device and submitting it to the FDA for regulatory approval. The #HOPE4LIVER trial launched at the University of Wisconsin – Madison along with other sites, including University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Kansas, University of Chicago, Medical College of Wisconsin, Tampa General Hospital, and Miami Cancer Institute, this month.  

The first human trial for hepatic tumors took place in Barcelona, Spain in 2019. Dr. Ziemlewicz says, “From the trial, we learned a couple of things. We could successfully make these histotripsy treatments in the liver, and they were more accurate and predictable, more continually visible than our current treatments from microwave ablation. This means we could treat right to the edge of structures safely, patients felt little to no pain afterwards, and each patient was treated in a single session. Two out of the eight patients in the trial showed a response from their cancer outside the spot where the physicians treated, which is a rare occurrence in other ablation modalities and an exciting development of histotripsy.” 

 Dr. Ziemlewicz and former UW faculty and current UM surgeon, Clifford Cho, MD, serve as the Principal Investigators of the national trial. Lori Mankowski Gettle, MD, MBA and Meghan Lubner, MD, both experts in locoregional therapies of the liver, are serving as Principal Investigators for the site trial at UW-Madison. Dr. Mankowski Gettle says, “I’m really excited and proud to be a part of an organization that prioritizes patient care and innovation.” 

You can learn more about this trial here: #HOPE4LIVER Study for Primary and Metastatic Liver Tumors ClinicalTrials.gov Information. Those interested in participating in the clinical trial can contact Janis Yakey by email at JYakey@uwhealth.org or by phone at 608-265-3018. 

Anand Narayan, MD received multiple honors in the last month. First, he was selected as Vice Chair of the American College of Radiology’s Patient and Family Outreach Committee. Dr. Narayan says, “”I’m honored to have the opportunity to promote collaborative relationships between health care providers, patients, and families. With Committee Chair Dr. Ian Weissman from the Milwaukee VA Center, I’m looking forward to bringing the lessons I learn from this committee back to Wisconsin.” 

Secondly, he co-authored an article, “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Lung Cancer Screening Eligibility,” that was published is Radiology. In the article, he analyzes how revised guidelines for lung cancer screening eligibility enhance health disparities for racial minorities. 

Lastly, he is featured in this month’s American College of Radiology (ACR) Bulletin, where he discusses how to reach out to patients for preventative screenings. Dr. Narayan serves as the Department of Radiology’s Vice Chair of Equity, and a major focus of his position is to address healthcare disparities in underrepresented populations in Wisconsin. Dr. Narayan says, “My research interest is focused on reducing breast cancer disparities. I love and embrace the Wisconsin Idea, which allows for research on real-world issues, such as breast cancer disparities in Wisconsin. I want to focus my research on addressing these disparities.” 

Congratulations, Dr. Narayan! 

Eight years ago, the Department of Radiology became the first donor to the HOPE (Health Occupations and Professions Exploration) Project, an initiative to provide career pathways education and guidance to students seeking careers in healthcare. In 2013, the project started with 120 students, and today, over 400 students participate annually. Since 2013, the HOPE Summer Internship program has had over 500 interns and is the first to recruit high school interns in the UW Health system.  

The program’s growth includes new opportunities to serve more age groups. The HOPE Project now offers programs for middle school students, including field trips, internships, and career exploration events. It has also expanded its programming to high school students, now offering apprenticeships that allow students to earn college credit. College students also can participate in HOPE’s offerings through various mentorship, internship, scholarship, and apprenticeship programs. Lastly, adults can participate through an apprenticeship (Medical Assistant, Nursing Assistant, Phlebotomy, Pharmacy Tech, maintenance, skilled work), short-term work experience, and scholarships. 

The apprenticeship programs’ participants have been 87% people of color and 100% meeting one or more underrepresented demographics. Ninety-one percent of participants report that their apprenticeship is their first educational experience after high school. 

Bridgett Willey, PhD, HOPE Project Founder said, “We’re addressing exploratory opportunities; we’re increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in health care; and we’re addressing workforce needs. I’m really happy to say we can do all of those now with this set of programs.” 

Learn more about getting involved with the HOPE Project today: https://hopemadisonwi.org/get-involved/

The American Society of Head & Neck Radiology (ASHNR) Annual Meeting was held virtually on September 8 – 12, 2021. The goals of the ASHNR Annual Meeting include “advancing knowledge, stimulating interest, promoting research, and improving methods of Head and Neck Imaging.” The American Society of Functional Neuroradiology (ASFNR) Annual Meeting was held in Sante Fe, NM on September 19-21.

Many members of the Neuroradiology section participated in and presented at the meetings. Read below to see the faculty, staff, and fellows who gave presentations during this year’s meeting. We are proud that UW was represented so well, and congratulations to winners of educational exhibit awards! 

ASHNR

Oral Presentations: 

• Justin Brucker, MD: Anterior Skull Base: Anatomy, Variants, Developmental Lesions 

• Tabby Kennedy, MD: Hypopharynx 
• Gregory Avey, MD: Diffusion-Weighted Imaging in Head and Neck: What Flavor 

Abstracts: 

• Thomas Reher, MD; Greg Avey, MD; Anthony Kuner, MD; Tabby Kennedy, MD: Post-Contrast STIR imaging of the brachial plexus 

Educational Exhibits: 

• Current fellow Bradley Otto, MD; Greg Avey, MD; Jacki Whisenant, Katie Yang, MS; Tabby Kennedy, MD: Development of a Head and Neck Curriculum for Early Learners Utilizing Infographics. This exhibit won silver. 
• Former fellow Joseph Lang, MD; Anthony Kuner, MD; Tabby Kennedy, MD: Horner Syndrome and the Oculosympathetic Pathway: A Case Based Review. This exhibit won gold. 
• Laura Eisenmenger, MD and Ryan Griesbach, MD (current fellow): Non-epithelial Masses of the Oral Cavity. This exhibit received a Certificate of Merit and an invitation to be published in Neurographics. 

ASFNR

Oral Presentations:

• Aaron Field, MD, PhD and Howard Rowley, MD: EPI-Mix: Clinical Experience with 1 Minute Multicontrast MRI
• Laura Eisenmenger, MD: Intracranial Aneurysms: The Value of Vessel Wall Imaging

Tim Szczykutowicz, PhD has been granted a patent for his project, X-ray Imaging Device Providing Enhanced Spatial Resolution by Energy Encoding. 

“In a nutshell, the idea is to divide each detector into sub-regions via energy weighting of the spectra on a length scale smaller than the detector element. This way, if you acquire multiple energy resolved measurements, you can decouple the detector signal at the length scale of the energy encoding, which is smaller than the detector size, allowing you to get resolution smaller than your detector! So, the resolution is determined by the energy encoding (i.e., a grid of filters placed over the detector) instead of the detector spacing. It would allow for cheap retrofitting of a detector, enabling higher spatial resolution,” explains Dr. Szczykutowicz.  

In addition to his patent, Dr. Szczykutowicz had his research published in PLOS ONE.

Paul Laeseke, MD, PhD has been granted a patent for his project, System and method for motion-adjusted device guidance using vascular roadmaps. 

The abstract of his patent reads, “A system and method is provided for creating motion-adjusted or motion-compensated images of a patient to guide an interventional medical procedure. The method includes displaying a static roadmap and a plurality of dynamic images to show the interventional medical device aligned on the static roadmap using a motion transformation. Alignment of the interventional medical device on the static roadmap is based on a user selection of one of motion compensation of the interventional medical device relative to the static roadmap to produce a plurality of images that do not show patient motion or motion adjustment of the static roadmap relative to the interventional medical device to produce a plurality of images that show patient motion.” 

Guang-Hong Chen, PhD has been granted a patent for his project, System and method for multi-architecture computed tomography pipeline. 

The abstract of his patent reads, “A system and method for reconstructing an image of a subject acquired using a tomographic imaging system includes at least one computer processor configured to form an image reconstruction pipeline. The reconstruction pipeline at least includes an automated correction module configured to receive imaging data acquired from a subject using ionizing radiation generated by the tomographic imaging system and generate corrected data using a first learning network. The reconstruction pipeline also includes an intelligent reconstruction module configured to receive at least one of the imaging data and the corrected data and reconstruct an image of the subject using a second learning network.” 

Congratulations Drs. Szczykutowicz, Laeseke, and Chen!