KARACHI, Oct 12: Imaging - a comparatively new specialty in the field of medical science which during first 100 years of its inception focussed on structural abnormalities in the nervous system - is currently centred on functional abnormalities easing the process to pick up a disease before aberration actually occurs.

The constant progress made in the discipline has significantly stabilized the concept of prevention rather than cure. These views were expressed by Dr Naveed Yousuf, Director of Neuroradiology, Bloomington Radiology, S.C. and Neuroradiologist, the Central Illinois Neuroscience Foundation, the USA, while addressing a continuing medical education programme organized by the Dow University of Health Sciences on Tuesday.

Giving his presentation on "Beyond Morphology: Imaging the functioning of brain", he maintained that individuals at high risk as those with family history of stroke, cancers, dementia, parkinson disease and so-forth were being provided ample opportunity to avoid any possibility of being inflicted with the same.

Functional MRI contrary to the traditional MRI was further stated to be particularly beneficial in efficient handling of psychological conditions, neurologic disorders as well as neurosurgical interventions.

"In case of the central nervous system, precise functional localization of a seizure focus or a tumour can help the neurosurgeon safely remove the lesion with minimal damage to the adjoining normal tissue," he elaborated reminding that functional imaging has the potential for early detection as well as treatment of the disease.

According to him, a variety of novel MRI sequences and nuclear medicine probes are now routinely used in clinical medicine, not to image diseased anatomy, but to study in vivo tissue perfusion, metabolism and chemistry.

Dr Naveed Yousaf said it was doable in Pakistan too, however, the experts and practitioners needed to develop their own data as local population had a different make-up of genes and disease patterns, both in terms of mental and physical ailments.

Mentioning that the said non-invasive imagery modality is applied in the USA on routine basis, for clinical as well as research purpose, the neuroradiologist observed that Pakistan where research paradigm was different researchers ought to see how this could be applied in containing neuro-metabolic disorders as well as relevant disease model pertinent to local population.

He said that during genesis of a disease process, molecular and physiological changes in the tissues usually preceded the gross anatomic changes, which in turn were followed by clinical signs and symptoms hence application of functional imaging paved way for before hand recognition of possible disorder and timely intervention.

Dr Naveed reiterated that functional imaging provided unique opportunity to study the higher functions of the brain and that a variety of non-anatomic concepts could be interrogated including cognition, behaviour, language, memory, emotions and creativity.

In a nutshell, he maintained that functional neuro-imaging used a variety of newer, non-invasive imaging modalities taking radiologists beyond mere assessment of morphologic changes in tissues.

He mentioned that principles and clinical indications of the Single Photon Emission Tomography, Positron Emission Tomography, MR Spectroscopy and the Functional MRI could be reviewed with clinical examples from a variety of paediatric and adult clinical settings.

However, he said that these techniques should not be considered new tests for old diagnoses rather these techniques provided new images of the disease promising unprecedented insights into functioning of human mind.

Earlier, the neurology department's head of Civil Hospital, Prof Saleem Ilyas, who is also the coordinator of CME programme of Dow varsity, introduced the guest speaker and said that Dr Naveed Yousuf graduated from Aga Khan University in 1988 and received radiology training from Harvard Medical School, Boston. He got further training in neuroradiology from the very centre. -APP