ECR

Use peer review in radiology as an opportunity for improvement, said David A. Koff, MD at ECR 2015.

Is teleradiology good for radiology?

Tips for radiologists on staying relevant.

Radiologists need to anticipate the changes of the future.

Final results of the prospective French CIRTACI trial are in: contrast media for diagnostic imaging are very safe in general, as long as radiologists are vigilant for patients with allergies, asthma, or previous reactions to contrast agents. The vast majority are more itchy than serious.

PET hybrid technologies are already hot, and two innovations discussed during the final session of ECR 2011 are aimed at making them more even powerful and efficient.

Was it just business as usual for PACS vendors at this year’s European Congress of Radiology? That’s the assessment of one medical research firm that surveyed the PACS landscape at the congress.

Advances in MRI have enabled better understanding for diagnosing epilepsy, while multimodality techniques allow for better information for surgery and post-surgery follow up, according to experts presenting at ECR 2011.

Through carefully calculated adjustments to coronary imaging using dose-reduction techniques, cardiologists have managed to reduce the radiation delivered to patients undergoing coronary angiograms considerably. Plus, it’s possible to maintain good image quality throughout, researchers found

As the population ages, radiologists will be required to recognize common pathologies - while avoiding overdiagnosis, according to experts presenting at ECR 2011.

Will we still be using mammography for breast cancer screening one fourth of the way through this century? That was the question posed in one session at ECR 2011, and speaker Christine Kuhl said she greatly fears that we actually may.

Just this month, cardiovascular surgeons and diagnostic radiologists collaborated to publish an article showing that CT is much better than ultrasound at measuring the diameter of the aortic annulus - an important matter when deciding which size of valve to implant transcutaneously. This could both dishearten and encourage radiologist Rodrigo Salgado of Antwerp University Hospital, who says CT is best for measuring the annulus, and that isn't circular, doesn’t have a radius, and in fact actually doesn't exist.

Functional MRI studies involving the precuneus, a region in the posterior of the brain, reveal what may be a new way to distinguish patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from those with Alzheimer’s disease.

Last week, exactly 25 years after the first "high-field" (1.5 T) MRI scanner was introduced, radiologists gathered at an ECR 2011 session in Vienna, Austria, to ponder what its chairman called "higher and higher field magnets."

For spotting the tiniest metastases inside the liver, MRI with the liver-specific gadolinium-based contrast agent Primovist (gadoxetic acid) was far and away the top choice of surgeons in an eight-country multicenter study. The surgeons were given a chance to use various imaging methods for colorectal center patients and judge their value. The same contrast agent is also proving adept at visualizing obstructions in biliary vasculature, compared to non-contrast-enhanced MRI.

Refinements in MRI technique continue to show promise in clarifying the nature and extent of damage of myocardial infarction. Take for example teams from Munich, Germany presenting this week at ECR 2011, who have been finding ways around the problem of adapting inversion time to the individual patient when using delayed enhancement to detect tissue damage.

Five years after the first reports linking gadolinium-based MRI contrast agents to nephrogenic system fibrosis (NSF), separate presentations of post-marketing data from manufacturers and an independent prospective study supported by agencies in France have validated the low-risk status of the contrast agent Dotarem (Gd-DOTA).

Ultrasound elastography is shown to raise sensitivity by 24 percent for preoperative assessment of axillary metastases in suspected breast cancer. Meanwhile, microbubbles identify sentinel lymph nodes, minimizing operations, according to researchers presenting at ECR 2011.

Organizers for this year's congress have worked to increase audience and speaker interaction and discussion.

In anticipation of the European Congress of Radiology 2011, which will be held March 3 to 7 in Vienna, Austria, Diagnostic Imaging caught up with Professor Yves Menu, chairman of the department of radiology at Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris and the ECR 2011 Congress President.

Through carefully calculated adjustments to coronary imaging using dose-reduction techniques, cardiologists have managed to reduce the radiation delivered to patients undergoing coronary angiograms considerably. Plus, it’s possible to maintain good image quality throughout, researchers found.

Radiologists should be clinically focused when handling HIV cases, according to a leading chest expert. They must know if patients are drug-naïve or whether they are already on antiretroviral therapy. It is also important to determine how they acquired their HIV, whether onset is acute or more gradual, and how profoundly unwell the patients feel.

Rheumatoid arthritis, which affects approximately 2.9 million people in Europe, can be difficult to differentiate from other forms of arthritis. Without an early diagnosis, however, it is impossible to assess the true effect of promising early intervention strategies. Could an alternative diagnostic imaging strategy be the answer?

Crystal-ball gazing reached new levels at ECR on Saturday, when Prof. Dieter Enzmann took delegates on “a trip to radiology Tomorrowland,” as he referred to his W.C. Röntgen honorary lecture.

It wasn’t too long ago that ultrasound was a roiling sea of innovation and new product releases, spurred by a rivalry among Diasonics, ATL, Hewlett-Packard (Agilent Technologies), and Acuson. Since these companies’ acquisition by GE, Philips, and Siemens, the waters have calmed. Supersonic Imagine plans to begin making some waves -- and soon.

If radiologists could design the perfect modality for guiding interventional procedures, the resulting technology would undoubtedly produce high-quality images without exposing patients to any ionizing radiation. So given the widespread availability of MRI, why are so many interventions still performed in the angiography suite?

As part of the European School of Radiology (ESOR) Visiting Scholarships Programme, I had the opportunity to obtain further training in musculoskeletal radiology in Dublin from September until December 2008.

Philips and Toshiba hope to open up a new end of the market for hand-carried ultrasound – the high end.

MR systems used in cardiovascular imaging will inevitably have higher field strengths, including 7T, according to a leading cardiac radiologist.

CT and MRI have a vital part to play in cases of head and neck trauma, but it is important to know which modality to use under the clinical circumstances, according to speakers at Friday’s opening session of the minicourse on major trauma.