CT

GE equipment performs CT helical shuttle, dual-energy scansUltrasound for iPodsEclipsys to acquire lab software companyGE releases CardIQ Fusion

Nuclear medicine’s growing importance to medical practice and research permeated Dr. Henry Wagner’s 29th annual meeting highlights lecture last Wednesday at the 2006 Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting.

From the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting, an audio interview with Jeff Grenier, director of marketing and sales for Stockholm-based Hermes Medical Solutions, about the company’s plans for referring physician outreach and expansion into PACS.

GE Healthcare commercially launched its quad-slice Infinia Hawkeye SPECT/CT at the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting. The company also kicked off a sales campaign for its 64-slice Discovery PET/CT.

An image illustrating perfusion SPECT/CT’s importance for assessing low-risk patients with suspected myocardial infarction was selected as image of the year at the 2006 Society of Nuclear meeting in San Diego.

From the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting exhibit floor, an audio interview with Karthik Kuppusamy, Ph.D., general manger for Americas nuclear medicine, PET/CT, and cyclotron business at GE Healthcare, who touted the company’s Discovery VCT.

With $2.6 million in early commitments, the Society of Nuclear Medicine passed the halfway point in its $5 million goal on the first day of a planned five-year campaign to promote the translation of molecular imaging discoveries into clinical practice.

A monoclonal antibody-labeled radioimmunotherapy may help overcome a leukemia resistant to radio- and chemotherapy, according to a report presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting in San Diego.

The 2006 meeting of the Academy of Molecular Imaging occupied the middle ground between meetings of its two sister societies, the eminently scientific Society for Molecular Imaging and the clinically oriented Society of Nuclear Medicine.

As the incidence of malignant melanoma increases, researchers are seeking ways to accurately and reproducibly measure tumor volume and therapy response. Computer-aided volumetry may be an answer.

Image reconstruction software that virtually unfolds the colon wall could shorten CT colonography's reading time without compromising diagnostic accuracy, according to researchers at the 2005 RSNA meeting.

SPECT/CT has been tagged, rather unkindly, as a modality solution looking for a problem. But as early adopters are showing, it has considerable potential as an all-rounder in busy nuclear medicine departments.

As the diagnostic CT side of hybrid imaging adds new clinical potential for nuclear practices, some sites are facing questions about how to bill properly for the procedures. While practitioners in Germany and the Netherlands have encountered no problems with reimbursement, the situation outside of Europe is different.

The first official document outlining the appropriate use of PET/CT in cancer patients, released in May, aims to help physicians and technologists follow standardized guidelines. But it's unlikely to quell the debate over who should interpret the hybrid exams.

Philips Medical Systems will launch the latest version of its JetStream Workspace at the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting in San Diego next week.The enhanced product, Version 3.0, features new workflow and image-display capabilities. Incremental improvements have been made in cardiac, bone, renal, salivary, and brain imaging.

Next week at the SNM meeting, Hitachi Medical Systems America (HMSA) will unveil a new version of its Sceptre PET system, one dedicated to cardiac applications. The system, called SceptreC, is configured to use rubidium-82 to gauge myocardial perfusion and fluorine-18 FDG to assess myocardial viability.

FDA clearances dipped in April compared with their spike in March, but the latest month put the industry back on track with previous years’ performance, outshining five of the past six Aprils with 28. That brings the total to 80 clearances this year -- in the ballpark with, though still lagging behind, industry performance since 2000.

A shortage of nuclear medicine physicians and the growing responsibilities of nuclear medicine technologists has spurred the Society of Nuclear Medicine to offer seed money for institutions to develop curriculum suitable for creating supertechs.

MR colonography has yet to capture radiologists' imagination to the same extent as CT. But the radiation-free exam has a bright future, especially if stool-tagging techniques can avoid the need for bowel cleansing, according to speakers at ECR 2006.

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Scintimammography with a traditional gamma camera has limitations, including poor spatial resolution, excessive lesion-to-detector distance, and inability to image in multiple positions or positions comparable to mammography. Recent advances in technology, however, have led to the development of high-resolution breast-specific gamma cameras that easily fit into a breast imaging practice. Researchers have found this technology useful in evaluating indeterminate mammograms, particularly in women with dense breasts and a family history of breast cancer.

Minimally invasive CT colonography has been embraced by radiologists and patients alike. As the technique evolves, its use is shifting from specialized academic centers to community hospitals and private practices. That transition is focusing increased attention on reimbursement, clinical efficacy, and interpretation issues. Computer-aided detection for CTC could affect all three.