A total of nine Mentor Award presentations were given at the ASSR 2004 Annual Symposium, February 15-19 in Miami Beach, Florida. In March, the ASSR Ad Hoc Mentor Award Committee, under the Committee Chair, Dr. M. Judith Donovan Post, selected the following four presentations as recipients of the 2004 ASSR Mentor Award:

Best Overall Presentation

Huy M. Do, M.D.- Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California
Prospective Analysis of Clinical Outcomes After Percutaneous Vertebroplasty for Painful Osteoporotic Vertebral Body Fractures

Other Award Recipients

David Dansie, M.D.- Mayo Clinic, St. Mary’s Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota
Post-Vertebroplasty Spine MRI According to Origin of Recurrent Back Pain

Asante Dickson, M.D.- Winthrop University Hospital, Mineola, New York
16 Channel Multislice CT/Discography and Improved Visualization of Disc Pathology

Sanjay Saluja, M.D.- Yale University Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut
Diffusion Weighted Imaging for the Diagnosis of Spine Osteomyelitis

The ASSR Ad Hoc Research Committee, under the Committee Chairman Dr. Gordon K. Sze, selected two recipients for the ASSR/ArthroCare Spine Research Award out of a total of four submitted applications. The recipients and their projects are as follows:

Sanjay Saluja, M.D.- Yale University Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut
Line Scan Diffusion Imaging of the Spine

A. Orlando, Ortiz, M.D., M.B.A.- Winthrop University Hospital, Mineola, New York
The Effect of Vertebral Augmentation on Pulmonary Function: A Prospective Study