James Brice

The dramatic growth of Medicare-related medical imaging utilization-which drew the attention of rate-cutting federal policymakers and the wrath of politicians on Capitol Hill in the mid-2000s-has ended, according to a study from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Cancer patients saw a four to five times greater increase in their average annual exposure to imaging-related ionizing radiation than the general population since 1994, according to a retrospective study of more than one million privately insured people in the U.S.

U.S. hospitals could save nearly $22 million annually by deemphasizing CT in favor of diagnostic ultrasound as the frontline imaging test for suspected appendicitis. Such a change would also spare many patients unnecessary exposure to ionizing radiation from CT, according to financial evaluation and meta-analysis by Laurence Parker, Ph.D., an imaging economics researcher at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Radiologist errors identified from an analysis of 656 imaging exams paints a unique picture describing why radiologists make errors. The analysis also points to ways such mistakes can be prevented.

A Monday morning scientific session covering cardiac CT dose and noise broke down into newsworthy matched pairs: two studies examining the implication of CT radiation on public health, two investigating the impact of radiation reduction strategies on patient dose and image quality, and a third pair considering how noise reduction from iterative reconstruction affects the quality of images of highly calcified vessels and morbidly obese patients.

A few modifications to the radiology order form can serve an important function in encouraging physicians to adopt evidence-based practices when ordering CT to evaluate small pulmonary nodules, according to a study from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Dr. Hedvig Hricak used her presidential address before the opening session of the 2010 RSNA meeting to express her desire for a new molecular imaging subspecialty while cautioning radiologists that MI is not appropriate for all clinical settings.

A growing body of data is linking sportsrelated concussions to brain damage associated with cognitive impairment.

The brains of 24 retired U.S. National Football League players with known cognitive impairment show signs of damaging atrophy, according to advanced MRI studies described at the 2009 RSNA annual meeting.

In the aftermath of CT-related radiation accidents at the prestigious Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the FDA, healthcare providers, and manufacturers are taking action to avoid suffering through similar situations themselves.

An in-depth look at outpatient imaging services in Southeast Michigan has uncovered a wasteland of outpatient imaging where technologists are poorly trained, imaging is interpreted without written records, and films are allowed to pile up in patient waiting rooms.

CT vendors have responded to public concerns about radiation dose with innovations that promise to cut patient exposure substantially without affecting imaging service operations.

The brains of 24 retired National Football League players with known cognitive impairment show signs of damaging atrophy, according to advanced MRI studies described at the 2009 RSNA annual meeting.

An international research team has established the Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008, exacted a toll beyond the nearly 70,000 deaths and 374,000 casualties from the magnitude 8.0 temblor.

Coronary artery calcium scanning predicts the risk of myocardial infarction and sudden death accurately enough to guide the selection of diagnostic tests for symptomatic patients, according to a multicenter prospective study.

The ability to self-refer may explain why cardiologists were better able than radiologists to adjust to Medicare rate cuts after the implementation of reimbursement reforms from the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Dr. Paul E. Berger, founder and former board chair of NightHawk Radiology, a $168 million teleradiology firm, is advising fellow radiologists to again emphasize their role as stewards of medical imaging to guard against the teleradiology revolution he helped foment.

Using functional MRI, an international research team has established the Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008, exacted a toll beyond the nearly 70,000 deaths and 374,000 casualties from the magnitude 8.0 temblor.

The controversy surrounding mammography screening guidelines announced in November by the influential U.S. Preventive Health Services Task Force has continued to swirl in the nation’s capital.

Standard nuclear scintigraphy of parathyroid cancer produces enough false positives for patients with multigland disease to lead researchers to recommend rapid intraoperative parathyroid hormone assay along with preoperative technetium-99m sestamibi imaging to assure that all lesions have been removed.

Endocrinologists are biting into radiology’s control over the management of nuclear imaging procedures involving an administration of radioiodine.

The brains of 16 retired National Football League players with known cognitive impairment show signs of damaging atrophy, according to advanced MRI studies described Wednesday at the 2009 RSNA annual meeting.

A preliminary study suggests that CTA can play the role cardiac MRI has been playing for detecting and quantifying myocardial infarction to estimate the potential success of coronary bypass graft surgery.

CT vendors have been talking for months about the potential of iterative reconstruction as the next big thing to substantially reduce the worrisome radiation dose patients are exposed to during multislice CT imaging. Now they have results of a large multicenter cohort study to add substance to their enthusiasm.

CMC-001, an investigational MRI liver contrast medium, may be at least a partial answer to reducing the long imaging times that have frustrated patients and encouraged radiologists to look for imaging alternatives to aid diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma and colon cancer metastases in the liver. A phase III trial indicates it is as sensitive as a gadolinium-enhanced MRI for detecting colon cancer metastases, but at the cost of lower specificity.

Radiologist Dr. Richard M. Chesbrough has taken an in-depth look at outpatient imaging services in Southeast Michigan, and the resulting picture is not pretty

Preoperative meniscal extrusion and the severity of cartilage loss and bone marrow edema can be trusted to predict the outcomes of arthroscopic partial meniscectomy in middle-aged and elderly patients.

A retrospective single-center study involving 350 pregnant women indicates that contrast-enhanced CT to diagnose suspected pulmonary embolism poses no risk to the thyroid function of neonats.

A collaborative project backed by the National Cancer Institute, the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) is serving as an umpire and scorekeeper of medical imaging research by setting the rules for assuring the validity of multicenter research and formatting results for easy tabulation and sharing.

Mild skin reactions are a not infrequent delayed adverse outcome of contrast-enhanced CT, according to a prospective study from the University of California, Davis.