A clinical trial underway at UPMC for an innovative, targeted treatment for pancreatic cancer delivered via a special catheter shows promising results. Hear more about this treatment and her patient Darlene Bossola's progress from SIR member Dr. Paula Novelli on KDKA-TV | CBS Pittsburgh.

Congratulations to Chandler Fountain, one of our second year residents, who won an award for his presentation at a prestigious meeting in NY this past May. His poster - Intrathoracic Hemorrhage, Hemothorax, and Vascular Malformations: Pitfalls and Pearls for Successful Management - was awarded first place in the category of Case Reports and Posters. Great job Chandler!

Citation:
Fountain C, Novelli P, Orons P. Intrathoracic Hemorrhage, Hemothorax, and Vascular Malformations: Pitfalls and Pearls for Successful Management. 13^th Annual Global Embolization Symposium and Technologies (GEST). May 9-12, 2019, New York, NY. Awarded First Place – Case Reports & Posters.

Jeffrey Towers, MD and Edmond Russ, MD attended the 2019 NFL Scouting Combine Feb 26- Mar 2, 2019 as members of the Pittsburgh Steeler Football Club medical staff. Drs. Towers and Russ provided medical imaging consultations for 5 NFL teams as they evaluated the top NFL draft prospects for the upcoming season.

They also attended the NFL Physicians Society Annual Scientific Meeting and Symposium. Dr. Phillip Bradley, the Pittsburgh Steeler head team physician presented: “Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) Shortens Return to Play in National Football League (NFL) Players with Acute Hamstring Injuries.”, which was co-authored by Dr. Towers.

Dr. Towers has attended the Combine physicals since 2004. This was Dr. Russ’ second trip to the Combine.

Congratulations to the radiologists: Vikas Agarwal, H. Scott Beasley, Wendie Berg, Barton F. Branstetter, William T. Delfyett, Carl Fuhrman, Marion A. Hughes, Emanuel Kanal, Joan M. Lacomis, Paul J. Lee, Joseph M. Mettenburg, James M. Mountz, Paula M. Novelli, Tanya J. Rath, William E. Rothfus, Jules H. Sumkin, Jeffrey D. Towers, and Mitchell E. Tublin as “Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Doctors” of 2019.

Experts from UPMC, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon met on Thursday May 18^th at UPMC’s Bakery Square location to discuss big imaging data infrastructure and data access. To effectively leverage Artificial Intelligence in Imaging, researchers and developers need access to big clinical imaging data sets. UPMC in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh is developing the data management infrastructure and organizing the process for big data requests. The goal is to open up UPMC’s large library of imaging data in a more efficient and coordinated process, given the extreme complexity of how the data is stored. This process will be integrated into the existing infrastructure for processing big data requests of the non-imaging health record data.

The UPMC Department of Radiology had a great showing at this year’s Association of University Radiologists (AUR) meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. Sina Houshmand, a second year resident in the Diagnostic Radiology residency program was selected as a presenter at the ACR-AUR Research Scholar Program, and received a $1000 award to attend the Annual Meeting of the AUR. Dr. Ashok Muthukrishnan mentored Dr. Houshmand on his project, entitled “Feasibility of post-therapy quantitative Lu-177-Dotatate SPECT/CT in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumor: comparison with clinical outcomes.”

Fellowship is one of the most prestigious honors granted to members of the Society of Interventional Radiology. This year, there were 40 inductees from throughout the US and abroad. Less than 10% of SIR members are elected to Fellowship status, and election signifies a long and consistent history of activities with substantial contributions to the field of Interventional Radiology at large and to the Society.