2024 – 2025 ISCD President
Dr. Paul A. Anderson, MD

 

ISCD recently welcomed Dr. Paul Anderson as the President of our Board of Directors during the Annual Business Meeting of the Society on April 4, 2024. Dr. Anderson has been an active ISCD member for nearly seven years and is a board-certified orthopaedic spine surgeon with special interest in spine trauma, tumors, cervical spine, and geriatric spinal diseases and osteoporosis. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of orthopaedic spinal surgery and currently holds an academic position as Emeritus Professor of Orthopedic at the University of Wisconsin.

Below is Dr. Anderson’s initial address to the ISCD Membership.

It is an honor to serve the ISCD membership.  The ISCD is important as it is the only society that promotes excellence and quality in densitometry. It is multidisciplinary and is very cognizant of the need to promote education and create standards for both technologists and medical providers.

I want to thank Dr Gil and the outgoing board members for their volunteer work in making the society function to its mission.

It is always good to review the Mission Statement and Vision when starting to lead an organization. The ISCD Mission states, “(ISCD) is a professional association dedicated to advancing high-quality musculoskeletal health assessment in the service of superior patient care.” ISCD’s vision is, “To make quality musculoskeletal health assessment accessible for people everywhere.”

I believe we are meeting the mission and vision through the success of many of our programs. Noteworthy are the many educational opportunities, worldwide participation, and interaction with technologists and providers.

To continue to meet our mission, we will need to adapt to a changing environment. Revenue streams do not match the rising costs of educational and certification programs. As you are all aware, consolidation to hospital based DXA, reduced time for academic/ leadership roles outside of practice and decreasing participation of industry partners are putting pressure on ISCD and other organizations. This pressure is exacerbated by the reduced ability of our volunteer members to participate and engage as they have in the past, the retirement of key leaders, and reduced participation from younger providers.

To continue to both meet our mission and vision, ISCD is committed in the next year to:

  • Planning a strategic retreat that will attempt to steer a path forward given the new realities. At the core, we will maintain our education and certification efforts and outreach to worldwide programs through the panels.
  • Examining each program/service center with need for revenue neutrality and relation to mission. Anyone who is interested in participation please let me or the society know, as we will appreciate all feedback/ recommendations.
  • Examining new technology, including advances in DXA, optional software, and the additional use of alternative densiometric techniques such as CT or ultrasound, to inform ISCD positions in the future.
  • Examining changes in the use of DXA and provide accurate and timely information on:
    • The considerable growth in the use of body composition for weight loss and athletic performance.
    • The use of artificial intelligence and machine language to interpret DXA.
  • Begin initial planning for the next PDC conference will begin by identifying the timing and leaders of this most important activity.
  • Creating patient educational materials for those undergoing densitometry and a guide on how to interpret DXA may add to the importance of the ISCD and help patients navigate what can be often confusing test results.

Most importantly we need to again emphasize quality densitometry.  Too many errors are present in reports, and there are incorrect interpretations that could affect treatment decisions are too often accepted.  Achieving quality is everyone’s responsibility and the ISCD should maintain its leadership in this endeavor through our educational programs and writing clear unambiguous positions. Collaboration with other organizations such as the American College of Radiology for quality improvement may be important.

Radiomics was recently a new term to me. For those not familiar radiomics is the extraction of quantitative features from imaging data. This seems familiar to ISCD as DXA and TBS are examples. Expanded use of radiomic features in the field of bone densitometry has the potential to improve sensitivity in predicting fracture risk, provide a better understanding of bone microarchitecture, assessing prognostic factors, and treatment effects.  How these opportunities can be applied to densitometry will be evaluated and discussed in the future. The ISCD should be willing to embrace this potential new technology, but only if it shows value in improving patient care.

The ISCD needs input and volunteer support from members. There is a lot to do and we only have so many staff. Therefore, we need our members to step up and help through participation in committees, reviewing for the Journal of Clinical Densitometry, or volunteering for leadership positions.

Thank you for the honor of electing me your president.  I look forward to a productive year.