Some have blamed in-office self-referral for imaging’s fall from grace, alleging that overprescription of imaging exams for personal gain and the low-quality images that often result have tarnished the specialty’s reputation. Now relief may come from an unlikely quarter: healthcare reform. More »
In 1999, when the National Academy of Engineering asked professional engineering societies to rank the top achievements of the 20th century, they ranked medical imaging techniques at number 14, one rung below the Internet and one above household appliances. A decade later the providers of imaging... More »
“Surprise, surprise, surprise!” drawled an awestruck Gomer Pyle, taken off guard by the obvious way more than he should have been. Maybe that’s why this hound-dog–looking actor came to mind as I read a study indicating that hospital deaths drop when more imaging exams are done. More »
A storm of public anger is brewing. The first signs are the gathering winds of dissent within the medical community against decades of sometimes shrill advocacy for breast and prostate cancer screening, winds that could easily blow up an indignant response from the American public. More »
I grew up believing that you get what you pay for. Look for sales, not knockoffs. Buy inexpensive, not cheap. Those were my shopping tenets, handed down by parents who lived through the Great Depression. After many years of believing this, I’m sorry to say the tenets may not actually hold, at least... More »
If current life expectancy trends continue, more than half of the babies born in rich nations today will live 100 years. Reaching the century mark is the natural extension of the huge increases in life expectancy—30-plus years—seen in most developed countries over the 20th century. Death... More »
It should come as no surprise that the nuclear medicine community is struggling to keep up with the number of prescribed heart and bone exams. Technetium is typically used in the U.S. for more than 16 million nuclear medicine tests each year—but not this year. A survey by the SNM found that three... More »
Using logic that could just as easily be applied when considering a toddler, the federal government damned proton therapy on Sept. 14 with a report that brands the cancer treatment as lacking evidence of effectiveness and safety. More »
It’s the kind of research that radiology needs: a study performed at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine that documents enormous cost savings from the use of an image-guided procedure. More »
Sometimes it’s just better not to know. One of those times may be when you feel perfectly fine, but your brain scan comes back with something that looks bad. The problem: how do you know it’s nothing to worry about? More »
