Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Meeting in Chicago, IL, in 2019, at McCormick Place

I was able to attend the Radiological Society of North America’s (RSNA) 105th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL, which occurred from December 1 to December 6, 2019. The annual meeting is a very large gathering of industry leaders in medical imaging, radiologists, and other related industry professionals. This was the 105th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting with the tagline: See Possibilities – Together. This year expanded focus on artificial intelligence with a brand new AI Showcase Technical Exhibit in the North Building. More than 100 companies were in the AI Showcase to demo software and products. In addition, the RSNA AI Deep Learning lab, a hands on classroom focusing on using open-source tools for deep learning, was now integrated into the AI Showcase Technical Exhibit. This year the AI Deep Learning Lab featured four unique sessions: Beginner Class: Classification Task, Segmentation, Data Science: Data Wrangling, and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs).

This year also expanded focus on 3D Printing and Advanced Visualization with an expanded Showcase and Theater offering daily presentations on the latest research and innovations in 3D printing for medical applications. I was able to attend a presentation covering Category III CPT Codes for 3D Printing of Anatomic Models and Guides, Scripting for Segmentation, 3D Printing to Support Research, and Leveraging 3D Printing for Surgical Simulation. It was quite interesting to hear more about the Category III CPT Codes for 3D Printing, which includes 0559T, 0560T, 0561T, and 0562T that went into effect in July, 2019. This should allow for greater adoption by physicians and medical centers. Even so, for those utilizing 3D printing, it was encouraged by the presenter of the CPT code talk to sign up for the RSNA-ACR 3D Printing Registry to help support a future category I CPT code.

As usual there were numerous posters and presentations. Also as usual, there were many exhibitors with medical imaging devices ready to provide demonstrations of their latest technology. New exhibitors this year included Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Medical IP. I was able to attend a few educational courses and scientific sessions. In particular I attended the Artificial Intelligence: Cutting Edge Artificial Intelligence session and Creating Publicly Accessible Radiology Imaging Resources for Machine Learning and AI sessions. In the former session mentioned above, an interesting talk titled Defacing Neuroimages discussed image de-identification using a two-step deep learning model for head CTs and brain MRIs. In the former session, I also was intrigued by a talk titled Automated Detection of Vertebral Fractures in CT Using 3D Convolutional Neural Networks that discussed automatically detecting vertebral fractures in CT images of the spine using a learning method with 3D features. The latter session featured several talks discussing practical challenges with data preparation including image pre-processing steps, techniques for creating ground truth labeling, and statistical approaches to create training and testing data sets.

Below are some of the pictures I took while at the RSNA annual meeting in 2019, in Chicago, IL.