While women choose radiology for intellectual stimulation and job satisfaction, they consistently have to overcome the stereotype of the nurturing caregiver. Physicians, as well as friends, have told potential radiology students that their outgoing personalities are incongruent with radiology.

Bone scintigraphy can pick the right candidates for a specific type of low back pain treatment, according to the first study in this realm. The SPECT-based imaging strategy could reshape the standard of care for these patients and may lead to significant cost savings.

No development since I began covering medical imaging in late 1997 has generated the level of excitement and potential for change as the 64-slice CT scanner. Plenty has happened in those years: the flourishing of CAD and virtual colonoscopy, 3T MR and parallel processing, continued advancements in ultrasound, PET/CT and SPECT/CT fusion imaging, and the ascendancy of PACS and imaging informatics.

Patients often ask sonographer Cynthia Rapp just what it takes to perform ultrasound. Her frank response about the necessary qualifications sometimes comes as a surprise.

Tensions between radiology and cardiology in the field of cardiac imaging have persisted for decades. The 1970s and 1980s were rife with turf battles over interventional angiography, echocardiography, and cardiac SPECT. More recently, cardiac MRI and CT have been the focus of intense debate about who is best qualified to perform and interpret these scans.

The Women's Center of St. Francis Hospital on New York's Long Island completed an expansion and renovation in 2005. Planning was guided by the dual objective of providing patients with the highest level of imaging services in the most comfortable, reassuring setting. Various issues arose during this process.

The market for 3T MRI is undoubtedly growing. Five years ago, few sites were using a 3T scanner for anything other than research. Now the higher field strength devices can be found in many clinical radiology departments and outpatient imaging clinics across the U.S. Clinical 3T is making inroads in Europe, too, though at a pace commensurate with its smaller MR base.

The Health Information and Management Systems Society annual meeting and exhibition in San Diego in February attracted approximately 25,000 attendees, including staff for 850 exhibitors. More healthcare chief information, technology, and operations officers as well as senior IT managers assemble at this conference than any other gathering in the world.

Despite distinctive boundaries shaping their work, Asian and European researchers have arrived at the same conclusion: Radiofrequency ablation is as effective as surgical resection for the treatment of single small hepatocellular carcinomas.

A digital chip that pumps fluids rather than electrons is being groomed to synthesize and label PET radiopharmaceuticals. The chip is about the size of a postage stamp. It promises to lower the overall cost of PET studies, while increasing onsite options available to providers, according to a recent study.

Findings of a Stanford University survey suggest teaching hospitals should reinforce training for radiology residents if they are to perform after-hours ultrasound scanning. Using residents to make up for the shortage of qualified sonographers could undermine medical education and compromise patient care. Data were published in the February issue of Academic Radiology.

Vendors could easily integrate a safety net into PACS and RIS that protects patients from patient mismanagement, saving lives and avoiding malpractice suits due to medical error.

Imaging reconstruction software that “unfolds” the colon wall flat could greatly shorten reading time for CT colonography. Researchers from Argentina have found no significant differences in diagnostic accuracy between the “filet view” and conventional CTC in the first study comparing both virtual colonoscopy techniques.

Toshiba launches dual-panel system at ACC showAn angiography system that supports both cardiac and peripheral applications debuted March 11 in the Toshiba America Medical Systems booth during the American College of Cardiology meeting. Infinix DP-i/FD2, which incorporates two flat-panel detectors, meets ACC guidelines for both types of applications, according to the company. The system features an 8 x 8-inch floor-mounted cardiac C-arm and a 12 x 16-inch ceiling-mounted C-arm. The design allows coronary and vascular studies on the same table, increasing overall patient comfort and saving time that would otherwise be lost moving the patient to a second system.

A decade has passed since luminaries began generating promising clinical results using ultrasound elastography, which measures the elastic properties of tissue. Two years ago, Hitachi Medical began commercializing this technology. Now that company’s experience with its EUB Logos 8500 and pioneering work with a modified Siemens Allegra suggest that efforts to push elastography forward could soon begin paying dividends for vendors, customers, and patients.

The FDA was good to the radiology industry in 2005. For the third time in as many years -- and the fourth in the last five -- the regulatory agency cleared more than 300 radiological products. The last quarter could have been better, however.

Toshiba’s foray into high-field imaging has taken a giant leap forward with the release of its Vantage ZGV, a 1.5T system outfitted with coils and software designed to return performance at the same level as a 3T system, according to the chief MR executive of the company’s U.S. arm.

Radiologists can make a more accurate preoperative diagnosis of damage to knee cartilage by using four radiologic signs, according to a study from Duke University Medical Center. Using the signs to identify the extent and type of damage to knee cartilage makes interpreting MRI with a higher degree of accuracy easier for any radiologist, regardless of level of expertise.

A workstation introduced March 11 at the American College of Cardiology conference processes MR cardiac data with such detail that the information rivals what can be obtained from conventional modalities, according to developer Toshiba America Medical Systems.

The rapidly expanding field of tumor ablation now includes a variety of heat-based ablation modalities using laser, microwave, radiofrequency, and ultrasound energy sources. Among these, RF ablation has found the greatest clinical utility worldwide.