The slice-war battlefield has calmed as CT vendors dig in with 64 slices, but the fallout has begun to take a toll. Cardiac studies over several phases of the heart and head-to-toe exams on trauma patients are burying reading rooms in thousands of slices. Knowing that the future will only bring more, vendors at this year's RSNA meeting are doing something, actually many things, about the problem.

Speech recognition technology can be integrated with most electronic medical record applications for rapid report creation. Searches, queries, and form filling are faster to perform by voice than using a keyboard. Hardware advances and improvements in the technology itself have brought the cost of ownership to an affordable level. Like any technology, however, deployment of a speech recognition program should be planned carefully to achieve full benefit from the software.

Two investigative studies have found that MR angiography at 3T produces quality images of the kidneys and excellent cardiac cine images. Researchers used high parallel imaging factors and a 32-element phased-array coil to increase spatial resolution and anatomic coverage.

The shift from film-based images and hard-copy reports to soft-copy reading and digital archiving has sparked challenges when it comes to sharing and distributing data. Referring physicians and patients now typically expect to receive medical data and images on portable media such as compact discs and DVDs. But not all of these portable devices are reliably interoperable with PACS and enterprise IT systems.

If the aim of digital imaging systems integration is to provide secure access to information and support physicians in clinical decision making, then the model for true integration may exist in New York City. There, a partnership between Siemens Medical Solutions and New York University Medical Center has yielded a product that completely integrates the digital imaging modalities and information systems of NYU's radiology department.

Here you'll discover how one site transitioned to speech recognition and tips on how to best accomplish that task; a report from the Radiology Consulting Group on how to sort through the confusing world of PACS pricing; a look at a new IHE standard that should help ease some of the headaches PACS administrators suffer when patients walk in with images on CDs; and a comment on the importance of ergonomic considerations in planning a reading setting.

Urinary bladder carcinoma is the second most common malignant tumor in the urogenital tract. This cancer causes 5000 deaths each year in Germany and 10,400 in the U.S., affecting men more often than women. The patient population is predominantly elderly, with a mean age of 70 years old.

Technology Update

German researchers have found that low-dose 64-slice CT colonography accurately detects colorectal polyps in a screening population. They also tested a new 3D visualization tool that enables simultaneous antegrade and retrograde views, significantly decreasing interpretation time.

Cross-sectional image display was first introduced with CT in the 1970s. It had such an impact that the modality was originally called computed axial tomography. Although CT data can be acquired only in the axial plane, it is possible to reformat images in any other plane. The quality of these images depends on the geometry of the voxel.

Like an expanding bubble, the number of MR applications continues to rise exponentially. Looking back over the last 27 years, I see several major MRI epochs: low- to midfield systems (late 1970s to mid-1980s), 1.5T with 10 mT/m gradients (mid-1980s to mid-1990s), and 1.5T with echo-planar gradients (mid-1990s to early 2000s). We entered a new epoch a few years ago: 3T with echo-planar gradients. Examining changes currently occurring, and understanding why they occur, can help us predict further changes to come over the next decade.

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This fall brought good news for advocates of CT colonography. A study in the November issue of Radiology presented the latest results from the University of Wisconsin, and they were very good: in a population of 1110 patients, CT colonography demonstrated a positive predictive value of 93.8% for polyps 6 mm and larger, up from 58.5% in an earlier trial conducted at the same institution (Radiology 2006;241:417-425).

CONTEXT: Building on established methods for CT virtual colonoscopy, Dr. Jamey Weichert, an associate professor of radiology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues tested a method for colonic tumor detection and characterization using PET/CT imaging.

CR vendor Radlink debuted at the 2006 RSNA meeting a value-priced system designed to help physician offices convert from film to digital radiography. The Pro Imaging will leverage the company’s existing lines, which include the CR Pro computed radiography system, hardware to digitize existing x-ray films, and software for managing practice workflow and data.

Nuclear medicine specialist Numa showed at the 2006 RSNA meeting enhancements for NumaLink, a cross-vendor data translation product, and NumaStore, a gamma camera and PET/CT image management system. The products promise greater connectivity within the nuclear medicine department and between nuclear medicine and radiology. Among NumaLink’s enhancements are DICOM translation capabilities for proprietary PET data sets, including those generated using Siemens and GE PET systems. The NumaStore upgrade supports Siemens’ preclinical microPET and the Inveon Dedicated PET small-animal imaging systems.

Carbon-11 tracer's 20-minute half life makes it too expensive for most community hospitals, but it can minimize radiation exposure and enable repeat measurements without interference from previous studies.

Studies presented at the RSNA meeting suggest that the promise of dual-source CT will be fulfilled by a big boost in temporal resolution and a corresponding increase in its sensitivity to coronary artery disease.