About every 4 weeks, the ECTS Webinar Series on Bone, Muscle & Beyond features an EACCME®-accredited educational lecture by leaders in the field of bone research. The webinar topics include a great variety in basic and clinical research aiming to attract a broad audience to view-in and participate in the discussion after each webinar.
One of those recently held webinars was entitled “Bone marrow fat imaging: technical basics and clinical applications” and was presented by Dr. Xiaojuan Li, who is the Director of the Program for Advanced Musculoskeletal Imaging at the Lerner Research Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, USA and leads an interdisciplinary team focusing on advanced imaging and image processing techniques for several musculoskeletal diseases, including osteoporosis. The webinar held on the 15th of July was moderated by the chair of the ECTS Academy Dr. Annegreet Vlug. With the topic of bone marrow fat imaging, Dr. Li has been at the forefront to quantitative imaging. In her webinar, she firstly introduced the biological importance of the bone marrow including the bone marrow adipocytes and their distinct differences to other fat depots in the body. She then explained in great detail the methodologies that have been used in the field for quantifying bone marrow fat contents and composition, including magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and water-fat MR imaging (MRI), and continued her presentation with the currently existing data – negative correlations of bone marrow fat and trabecular bone mass, as well as associations found with bone marrow fat content/composition and vertebral fractures. The combination of methodological details and clinically relevant data really sparked great interest in the audience and resulted in a lively discussion after the webinar. Such webinars not only summarize and discuss the scientific data that are currently available, but also give insight to methodological tricks and details that aid the broader understanding of the topic.
We invite you to listen to the recordings of past webinars in the member area of the ECTS website. Stay tuned for more ECTS webinars and we hope to welcome you to the next webinar held by Dr. Christa Maes on skeletal stem and progenitor cells of the osteoblast lineage on the 19th of August.