The growth and evolution of cardiovascular magnetic resonance: a 20-year history of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) annual scientific sessions

Abstract

Background and purpose: The purpose of this work is to summarize cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) research trends and highlights presented at the annual Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) scientific sessions over the past 20 years.

Methods: Scientific programs from all SCMR Annual Scientific Sessions from 1998 to 2017 were obtained. SCMR Headquarters also provided data for the number and the country of origin of attendees and the number of accepted abstracts according to type. Data analysis included text analysis (key word extraction) and visualization by 'word clouds' representing the most frequently used words in session titles for 5-year intervals. In addition, session titles were sorted into 17 major subject categories to further evaluate research and clinical CMR trends over time.

Results: Analysis of SCMR annual scientific sessions locations, attendance, and number of accepted abstracts demonstrated substantial growth of CMR research and clinical applications. As an international field of study, significant growth of CMR was documented by a strong increase in SCMR scientific session attendance (> 500%, 270 to 1406 from 1998 to 2017, number of accepted abstracts (> 700%, 98 to 701 from 1998 to 2018) and number of international participants (42-415% increase for participants from Asia, Central and South America, Middle East and Africa in 2004-2017). 'Word clouds' based evaluation of research trends illustrated a shift from early focus on 'MRI technique feasibility' to new established techniques (e.g. late gadolinium enhancement) and their clinical applications and translation (key words 'patient', 'disease') and more recently novel techniques and quantitative CMR imaging (key words 'mapping', 'T1', 'flow', 'function'). Nearly every topic category demonstrated an increase in the number of sessions over the 20-year period with 'Clinical Practice' leading all categories. Our analysis identified three growth areas 'Congenital', 'Clinical Practice', and 'Structure/function/flow'.

Conclusion: The analysis of the SCMR historical archives demonstrates a healthy and internationally active field of study which continues to undergo substantial growth and expansion into new and emerging CMR topics and clinical application areas.

Keywords: Archives; CMR; Cardiac; Heart; History; SCMR; Trends.

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

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Consent for publication

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s note

This work represents an official publication of the SCMR and was approved by the SCMR Executive Committee. It did not undergo the customary JCMR peer-review process.

Figures

Fig. 1

SCMR scientific sessions title pages from 1998 to 2017 illustrating a trend from basic to advanced CMR methods

Fig. 2

20-year evolution of SCMR annual scientific session attendance and number of accepted abstracts to be presented at the SCMR scientific sessions. Sustained growths of both annual scientific sessions attendance and scientific contributions are clearly evident. The attendance number of the 2018 meeting were not available at the time of this analysis

Fig. 3

a Changes in number of accepted abstracts by type over the past 20 years. b Relationship between number of SCMR annual scientific session attendees and number of accepted abstracts. c Development of ratio of attendance vs. accepted abstract over the past 20 years

Fig. 4

Word clouds visualizing the frequency of words used in SCMR scientific session titles over the past 20 years. Session titles were grouped in 5-year intervals and represent most frequently used words in SCMR session titles from 1998 to 2002 (a), 2003–2007 (b), 2008–2012 (c), and 2013–2017 (d). Word clouds were created using Voyant Tools (http://voyant-tools.org/)

Fig. 5

a Number of SCMR scientific session titles within major subject categories - trends over 20 years. b SCMR scientific session subject categories demonstrating “Super Growth” – defined as absolute growth ≥ 8 session titles over a 20-year time span. c SCMR scientific session subject categories demonstrating “Growth” – defined as absolute growth ≥ 4 session titles over a 20-year time span. d Several SCMR scientific session subject categories did not exist in the first time period, but exhibited significant growth in recent years