SCAR

A panel of radiology seers consulted a collective crystal ball during the closing session of the SCAR meeting and attempted to predict what the future holds for radiology in three, 10, and 25 years.

Breast imagers and their allies cornered vendor representatives during a special session at the SCAR meeting Saturday and demanded more standardization and consistency in the handling of digital breast images.

While the rapid transition to multislice CT overloads radiologists with images, the typical workflow strategy used to cope with image overload is unsatisfactory, according to a SCAR University session. A volumetric navigation approach addresses this problem, but not without problems of its own.

The final 30 minutes of SCAR’s marathon five-hour digital breast imaging forum on Saturday afternoon was allotted to a manufacturers’ panel discussion. Representatives from more than 15 manufacturers fielded questions from the audience.

Replacement of CRT displays with LCD monitors proved to be a key element in a reading room makeover described in an educational session Saturday.

Recurring annual operating costs related to powering and cooling magnetic disk archive storage systems amount to a major expense, according to a new archive ownership study.

A multisociety effort is under way to define what constitutes image quality from a clinical perspective.

Settling for traditional high availability, rather than a continuously available network paradigm, can be a costly strategy, eroding patient confidence and opening hospitals up to medicolegal issues, according to a SCAR University presentation. Turning to clustered computing could provide one solution to improving system availability.

Over 10% of the image CDs patients bring from one hospital facility to another cannot be transferred onto a PACS, according to a study from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Spending more for PACS does not necessarily mean you will get more, a SCAR University session learned Saturday.

Security event monitors, the latest advance in security software, can help defend radiology departments against the growing onslaught of network attacks, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Radiology departments need not fear irreversible compression of medical images, according to a Canadian review of the medical literature.

The field of teleradiology is an undeveloped legal frontier, according to a healthcare attorney speaking at a SCAR special session to address the challenges and solutions long-distance providers experience.

Not all institutions are large enough to expand their main PACS storage to accommodate the constant stream of incoming multislice CT data sets. For smaller institutions, a miniPACS can provide cost-effective additional storage for thin-section volumetric CT data sets, according to researchers in Seoul.

Imagine a reading space that allows you to electrically fog the glass to signal that you do not want to be interrupted. Or a system that directs sound from the speaker only to you, so you don’t have to share your conversations or music with unappreciative colleagues. These features and more will be part of the reading room of the future, and GE is giving them a trial run to see how they’ll be received by working radiologists.

The venerable DICOM CT and MR image objects are now more than 10 years old, outdated by comparison with the rapidly advancing capabilities of CT and MR technologies.

Security is not something that you buy and install, according to Dr. Paul Chang, director of radiology informatics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. A proper security model transcends devices and technology. It requires a reengineering of user behavior, attitude, and philosophy.

Little or no difference exists between 1-megapixel and 5-megapixel medical-grade LCD monitors for reading cervical spine images for fractures, according to a study presented at the SCAR meeting Thursday. And consumer-grade LCDs may be good enough for reading CT images, a second study concluded.

A “digital dashboard” helps radiologists quickly identify workflow trouble spots and could improve image management processes, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Overlying bone structure in the chest can stump computer-aided detection systems on the lookout for pulmonary nodules. Digitally subtracting the bone images from the chest radiograph can significantly improve CAD performance, according toMaryland researchers.

Keyboard and mouse, the basic tools for image manipulation in the digital environment, were tossed out with surprisingly good results in a pair of research studies presented Thursday.

One way to improve patient care is to expand PACS image acquisition outside the radiology department, attendees at a SCAR scientific session learned this afternoon.

The first large-scale research PACS has surfaced at Partners Healthcare in Boston. The CIRAS (clinical image repository access system) was described as a “research goldmine” at the Society for Computer Applications in Radiology meeting.

Changing PACS vendors after a long relationship can provoke nearly as much stress as the original courtship. A morning session at the Society for Computer Applications in Radiology meeting in Orlando detailed factors to consider in an impending breakup and prenuptials to prepare for the next marriage.

Help has arrived for radiologists who want to make the best use of the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise integration profiles when selecting and implementing informatics technology. The IHE released a radiology-specific handbook at the SCAR meeting that guides readers in the use of IHE profiles, said Kevin O’Donnell, co-chair of the IHE radiology planning committee.

The Society for Computer Applications in Radiology celebrated its quarter century milestone with a new tagline, a headquarters move, and a look into space during the opening session Thursday of its annual meeting in Orlando.

The urgent need to more efficiently manage the volume and flow of images in the radiology and medical fields has grown dramatically as scanning technology has evolved.

The Society for Computer Applications in Radiology will celebrate its silver anniversary at this year's annual meeting in Orlando with a new look. In a move designed to reposition itself in the changing world of electronic imaging, the society will unveil a new tagline at the conference next month: Innovating Imaging Informatics.

Events of last August -- when three widespread infestations of computer worms attacked Windows-based systems -- illustrated the vulnerabilities of many medical applications, including PACS.The pressing need for software patches was also revealed. Yet

While digital imaging management through PACS is an accepted technology in radiology, it remains a foreign concept in other areas of medicine, and vendors may have struggles ahead as they try to expand into new fields. Those struggles were outlined