ESR Research Seed Grants 2020

The European Society of Radiology (ESR), in cooperation with the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR), invited applications for the ESR Research Seed Grants 2020 to stimulate and provide funding for innovative projects and pilot studies that will subsequently lead to larger studies and further funding applications.

Several projects related to Artificial Intelligence or Cardiac Imaging were successfully completed by 2022!

Artificial Intelligence

  • Integration of a Retina U-Net algorithm for the automated detection of primary lung cancer in clinical workflows

The project is to built an interactive PET/CT reading tool with deep-learning-driven lesion detection. This improved the rates of detected malignant lesions and supports structured, complete reporting.

Thomas Weikert
Clinic of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel/CH

  • CT-based radiomics analysis in patients with intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) of the pancreas

CT-based radiomics parameters improved surgical decision-making by providing a more accurate and certainly more reproductible pre-operative diagnosis on non-invasive intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas.

David Tobaly
Department of Radiology, Hôpital Beaujon, Clichy/FR

  • RISK – Risk Maps using T2 mapping and Diffusion MR Sequences of the Prostate

This projects developed prostate risk maps using T2 maps together with other MR sequences using a large cohort, which will impact biopsy localisation and medical decision.

Liliana Caldeira
Department of Radiology, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne/DE

  • AI-driven MR-based imaging of tumor hypoxia

Non-invasive assessment of tumor hypoxia using MRI and deep learning opened the gates for improving patient selection for various liver-directed therapies and prompt treatment modification by more aggressive tumor targeting or by use of hypoxia-modifying drugs.

Ieva Kurilova
Department of Radiology, Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Amsterdam/NL

Cardiac Imaging

  • MRI-assessed myocardial deformation of the systemic right ventricle in patients with transposition of the great arteries

This study showed whether strain analysis can detect systemic right ventricular dysfunction in an earlier phase than conventional MRI techniques in patients with transposition of the great arteries.

Maja Hrabak Paar
Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb/HR

  • Spatio-temporal cardiac motion patterns in the non-invasive diagnosis of myocarditis.

Besides the pioneer work in exploiting spatio-temporal cardiac motion information, this project identified additional clues for non-invasive diagnosis of myocarditis using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.

Fabian Laqua
Institute for Diagnostic Radiology and Neuroradiology, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald/DE

  • Optimization and validation of highly accelerated compressed sensing whole-heart 4D-Flow imaging

The project optimised and validated compressed sensing-accelerated whole-heart 4D-Flow imaging, to enable simultaneous assessment of cardiac function and flow in a single measurement in clinical reasonable scan times.

Clemens Reiter
Department of Radiology, Medical University Graz, Graz/AT

  • Reliability of cardiothoracic ratio as an estimate of cardiac enlargement compared to gold standard MRI parameters

The project will assessed the correlation between the century-old, still widely used marker of cardiomegaly, cardiothoracic ratio (CTR) on chest radiograph and the current gold standard technique for cardiac size and function quantification, cardiovascular MRI. 

Monika Arzanauskaite
Department of Radiology, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Liverpool/UK