CT

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.

Cool-tip RF ablation ready for marketToshiba makes 600th 64-slice CTiCAD recruits new executive

Emory operates 64-slice PET/CTIMV study shows ultrasound expanding

Medrad CT injectors notch milestoneHologic ushers Discovery into cardiovascular assessmentEpix CEO resignsRadiologix revenues, earnings riseNightHawk reports quarterly lossAlliance revenues edge up in Q1

UltraRAD cuts distribution dealGE installs first BrightSpeedARRS presenters cut dose, speed read

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.

I have a personal interest in finding better ways of treating stroke. My favorite uncle was struck down by one in 1994, just as I was reporting on how the combination of tPA and head CT could produce miracles.

A powerful clinical case can be made for using cardiac CT angiography as a screening tool to help avoid cardiac catheterization. But does the technique make financial sense in nonemergent cases? A new cost-effectiveness study says yes -- if the price is right.

Buffalo psychologist Jamie Shiffner, Ph.D., beat the odds. The acute stroke patient was lucky enough to have everything go right after being struck down. With ischemic stroke, time is brain. Within moments of Shiffner's collapse at home on the evening of April 11, 2005, millions of neurons in his brain began dying every minute. The left side of Shiffner's body went numb, and attempts to talk resulted in nonsense phrases.

The typical CT exam exposes patients to the equivalent of between 100 and 250 chest x-rays. This fact escapes most physicians, including radiologists, according to Dianna D. Cody, Ph.D., chief of radiologic physics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Volume Interactions launches 3D workstation at surgical meetingFDA clears wide-bore CT from GE Amicas licenses workflow managerPhilips partners to diagnose lung disease

Current 64-slice CT scanners with improved temporal resolution enable detection of subtle regional changes in good correlation with clinical reference standards, according to a study presented this month at the annual meeting of the Society for Computed Body Tomography and Magnetic Resonance.

Less than a week after going public with its intent to acquire Suros Surgical, Hologic announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire R2 Technology, the acknowledged pioneer of computer-aided detection. The stock swap is valued at $220 million. With the Suros deal (valued at $240 million) already on the table, Hologic now has about a half-billion dollars in transactions in the works.

Coronary CT angiography has clocked impressive numbers to detect or rule out coronary artery stenosis. But do these numbers hold up when uninterpretable data are factored into the results? The answer is yes and no, according to a study presented at the annual meeting this month of the Society of Computed Body Tomography and Magnetic Resonance.

The reconstruction of CT data lags far behind acquisition, creating a gulf that widens with each new generation of scanners. The problem is most pronounced on the leading edge of clinical use: cardiovascular, fluoroscopic, and interventional applications.

Revenue from the delivery of new CT units in the U.S. last year grew 15% compared with the previous year, and unit volume rose about 3%, making 2005 the best sales year in the history of the modality. The availability of 64-slice scanners capable of coronary CT angiography led the industry to those heights. This year, however, vendors are just hoping to hold onto last year’s gains.

Colonic diverticular disease does not necessarily spoil CT colonography, according to a study by University of Wisconsin researchers. There is a caveat, though: Radiologists must apply a 3D imaging approach.