Annual
Consortium
Meeting
MR-Linac Consortium meeting continues to expand MR-guided radiotherapy horizons – Singapore 2024
The enthusiasm for MR-guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) continues to sweep across the globe, as new uses for the innovative treatment modality arise and as clinical evidence pours in, as reflected at the 19th MR-Linac Consortium meeting in Singapore. The international meeting boasted 250 attendees from 20 countries representing 50 centers and featured more than 80 scientific presentations and workshops.
With the Consortium’s continued growth, the meeting has evolved to accommodate and leverage new members, with the 100th member site – Skåne University Hospital, which is based in Lund, Sweden – joining the global community of MRgRT enthusiasts.
New faces, clinical studies and workflow efficiencies highlighted
“The MR-Linac Consortium is continuously growing and stronger than ever, and the clinical evidence for MRgRT is rapidly growing as well,” says Cameron Baillie, Elekta Clinical Collaborations Lead, Medical Affairs and Clinical Research. “The Consortium is a vitally important forum for the global Elekta Unity community to partner and learn from each other.”
the MR-Linac Consortium meeting has incorporated more interactive formats, like panel discussions, workshops, and Q&A sessions to foster active participation and knowledge exchange, Baillie adds.
As in previous years, the MR-Linac Consortium named the best Clinical, Technical and Young Investigator abstracts. In 2024, the Consortium announced that two awards had been named after two of the community’s dedicated colleagues, with the Technical Abstract Award named after Elekta Unity pioneer Prof. Jan Lagendijk (University Medical Center Utrecht [UMC Utrecht], Netherlands) and the Clinical Abstract Award named after multi-year Consortium Chair Dr. Christopher Schultz (Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin, USA).
Attendees reflect on the meeting’s value
His second MR-Linac meeting, medical physicist Jihun Kim, PhD (Gangnam Severance Hospital, Seoul, Korea), enjoyed the opportunity to network with and learn from other users. Gangnam Severance Hospital acquired Elekta Unity in 2021.
“The meeting also allowed me to make connections with others involved in MRgRT research,” Dr. Kim says. “For example, I met with users from Denmark who are doing research work on the clinical implementation of auto-segmentation for prostate cancer – which is similar to my investigations. There may be opportunities for collaboration with them.
“In addition, the MR-Linac meeting is unique among many other conferences in its singular focus on MRgRT as practiced by all the conference attendees,” he says. “We can have a very intense and concentrated meeting together.”
As a member of the Consortium’s biomarker brainstorm group, Dr. Kim found the abstract on the use of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to explore treatment response in glioblastoma during radiation therapy particularly interesting. (see Schultz award above).
Radiation oncologist Sweet Ping Ng, MD (ONJCC Austin Health, Melbourne), notes that it was important that the MR-Linac Consortium meeting convened in an Asian country for the first time.
“Approximately 30 percent of the MR-Linacs are in Asia, which makes it vital to engage these Asia-Pacific institutions,” says Dr. Ng, an Elekta Unity user for the last three-and-half years.
She found the Hypothesis Testing Program (HTP) session particularly interesting.
“All the ideas presented were novel and they generated great discussions on new ways to utilize the MR-Linac for the best clinical care,” Dr. Ng says. “Overall, the conference was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and data face-to-face with Unity users and with Elekta representatives.
“The meeting featured presentations not only from large academic institutions on new research findings, developments, the feasibility of novel imaging and treatment methods,” she adds, “but also those from private practices, which presented their insights on how to make MR-Linac workflows more efficient.”
What is the meeting all about? Watch the video below to discover more…
Meetings are scheduled yearly. The meeting is orgnised and run by a specific committee made up of representatives from across the consortium.
It is the intention to select locations that allow geographical spread of the meetings and that provide good international access.
The meetings are generally
divided into 2 main areas of interest:
Educational Interests
Primarily focused on members new to the Consortium or the technology, this track consists of presentations and workshops describing the Consortium structure and way of working, associated projects and the basis of the device (MR, clinical workflow, configuration and acceptance procedures), and achieving a common understanding on terminology (e.g., ATS vs ATP).
Scientific and Research Interests
Composed of a set of presentations and workshops that cover specific scientific and research activities of general interest for the whole consortium. Group meetings discuss clinical studies development and monitoring, guidelines and best practice definitions, and MOMENTUM project deliverables.
Other specific meetings also take place such as the Institutional lead meeting or brainstorm group meetings. Consortium meetings are private, and the material deployed during the meeting has to be considered confidential and property of the authors unless explicitly communicated otherwise
