Image Wisely Initiative to Help Providers Reduce Radiation Dose

As medical imaging exams have replaced more invasive procedures, benefiting patients and revolutionizing medicine, people's exposure to medical radiation has increased. Imaging providers are concerned that radiation exposure over time could have adverse effects for patients. They continue to act to ensure that patients receive only necessary scans and to reduce radiation dose used in these exams.

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George S. Bisset III, M.D., Named RSNA President-Elect

CHICAGO - George S. Bisset III, M.D., was named president-elect of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Board of Directors today at the Society's annual meeting. Dr. Bisset is currently chief of pediatric radiology at Texas Children's Hospital, as well as professor of radiology and Edward B. Singleton Chair of Pediatric Radiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
"I am looking forward to my tenure as president-elect, during which time I will also serve as secretary-treasurer," Dr. Bisset said. "The financial management of the RSNA is in excellent hands. I can only aspire to adding some new perspectives on improving our portfolio and providing some new insight into means for building our membership and membership programs."
Dr. Bisset earned his medical degree in 1975 at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. At Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC), Dr. Bisset completed his pediatric residency in 1977 and a fellowship in pediatric cardiology in 1980. In 1983, he began his radiology residency at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, combined with a pediatric radiology fellowship at CCHMC, completing both in 1986.

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Screening Tool May Better Identify Heart Disease in African Americans

CHICAGO—In a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), researchers say they may have an explanation as to why African Americans, despite having lower amounts of coronary artery calcification, are at increased risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular events compared with Caucasians.
The answer, according to researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, S.C., may be increased levels of non-calcified plaque, which consists of buildups of soft deposits deep in the walls of the arteries that are not detected by some cardiac tests. Non-calcified plaque is more vulnerable to rupturing and causing a blood clot, which could lead to a heart attack or other cardiovascular event.


"The African Americans and Caucasians we studied had approximately the same amount of plaque in their arteries, but different kinds of plaque," said John W. Nance Jr., M.D., a researcher in the department of radiology and radiological sciences at MUSC.
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Cancer Risk From Medical Radiation May Have Been Overestimated

CHICAGO—The risk of developing radiation-induced cancer from CT may be lower than previously thought, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"Radiation from medical imaging has gotten a tremendous amount of attention in recent years," said Aabed Meer, an M.D. candidate at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. "This is one of the first studies to track CT utilization in such a large population."

The researchers conducted a retrospective study using Medicare claims from 1998 through 2005 to analyze the distribution of CT scans, determine the ionizing radiation exposure associated with the exams and estimate the associated cancer risk in a population of older adults.

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Diagnosis Uncertainty Increases Anxiety in Patients

CHICAGO—Have you ever felt uneasy sitting in a doctor's waiting room or climbed the walls waiting for your test results? That feeling of anxious uncertainty can be more stressful than knowing you have a serious illness, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
"Not knowing your diagnosis is a very serious stressor," said the study's lead author, Elvira V. Lang, M.D., associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "It can be as serious as knowing that you have malignant disease or need to undergo a possibly risky treatment."
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Agfa Presents Its Latest Innovation, IMPAX Kiosk.

Agfa HealthCare, a major company providing medical imaging systems and healthcare IT solutions, has recently presented its latest innovation, IMPAX Kiosk, which represents a workflow improvement solution. IMPAX Kiosk is an interactive platform that permits the registration and check-in of patients to medical services at hospitals with no need for going to administration desks. Sarah Muckler, Senior Marketing Manager for Agfa HealthCare US, explained "For the patients, traditional check-in means waiting in a line before being afforded the opportunity to be personally checked-in by a receptionist. This can take fifteen minutes or more. With IMPAX Kiosk, we can reduce the check-in process time to five minutes." The use of the new systems will surely improve patients' satisfaction and will offer more time for administrative staff to concentrate on their other responsibilities.

CT, CTA, And Biopsy For Detection Of Natural Death Cause, Study

According to a new study, researchers mentioned that using a combination of computed tomography (CT), postmortem CT angiography (CTA), along with biopsy can be useful as a minimally invasive procedure for detecting the natural causes of mortality, such as cardiac arrest. The study took place at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Center for Forensic Imaging and Virtopsy, at the University of Bern in Bern, Switzerland. The findings of the study appear in the November issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Africa Telehealth 2010 – Opening Sessions

Telehealth and telemedicine is currently one of the significantly growing fields in healthcare industry. This is due to the fact that both fields have various advantages that can truly improve the levels of healthcare and medical services. Africa Telehealth 2010 conference, currently taking place in Cairo, Egypt, is aiming to discuss the adoption of tele-health, the benefits and the challenges affecting that adoption. The event was organized by Texas Telehealth Tech (TTT) and sponsored by leading telemedicine solutions provider, Polycom & FVC, Gross Remote Conferencing, and emerging Telemedicine company in the Middle East, Telemed Providers. The event extends from 23th – 25th of October with Health Imaging Hub contributing as the official media sponsor. In this report, we highlight the events and sessions that took place during the first day of the conference.
The first day of Africa Telehealth 2010 included a number of highly interesting sessions. After welcoming the attendees, the event started with a presentation from Dr. Sahar Saleem, Radiology Professor, Faculty of Medicine (Kasr El Aini), Cairo University. She spoke about telemedicine in Egypt, mentioning that the first radiology practice in the country, also the first in Middle East, took place in 1922. Dr. Saleem briefly spoke about radiology statistics in Egypt, such as number of MRI units in the country (160), and their ratio in relation to population (2 MRI units per million capita). She also added that PACS systems are currently used in Egypt but on a very limited scale. Dr. Saleem confirmed during her presentation that telemedicine represents a suitable solution against a number of obstacles hindering the improvement of healthcare services, such as lack of specialists and equipment in rural areas, over population and over-crowded cities such as Cairo and Alexandria, where patients need a lot of time to reach radiology centers. Dr. Saleem added that telemedicine can improve the level of radiologists in Egypt as a result to continuous discussions and consultations with their colleagues in Western countries such as US and Canada, adding that such discussions can be useful if they take place between radiologists in Arab countries. She concluded that the expansion in telemedicine adoption in Egypt will be highly cost-effective, not only for patients, as they will no longer need to travel for long distances to radiology centers, but also for hospitals and healthcare facilities.

The Life - Saving Benefits Of Cardiac Imaging

Doctors depend on cardiac imaging when they have patients suffering from chest pain or other risk symptoms of heart problems. This imaging procedure helps doctors in finding out whether there is an evidence of heart disease, such as blockages in the coronary arteries or reduced blood flow to the heart.There are two methods of cardiac imaging including Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Cardiac Computed Tomography (CT) are allowing doctors to take a closer look at the heart and great vessels at little risk to the patient.
MRI uses huge magnets and radio-frequency waves to promote high-quality still and moving images of the body's internal structures; no X-ray exposure is included, Like anything MRI also has disadvantages : people with peacemakers cannot have MRIs. Also some people who are morbidly obese cannot fit in into an MRI system MRI scans require patients to hold still for extended periods of time. MRI exams can range in length from 20 minutes to 90 minutes or more. Even very slight movement of the part being scanned can cause distorted images which means the scanning will need to be repeated , while CT scan is an x-ray procedure which combines many x-ray images with the aid of a computer to generate cross-sectional views of the body. Cardiac CT uses advanced CT technology with or without intravenous iodine-based contrast to visualize cardiac anatomy, including the coronary arteries and great arteries and veins. CT scan has also disadvantages: Lack of IV access makes the CT procedure difficult to interpret, CTA is unsuitable when there is a large amount of existing coronary artery calcification.

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ACR Image Mertix Hosted An Event To Enhance Imaging Trials

ACR image Mertix, an international imaging contract organization (CRO) including expertise in imaging trial design , techniques and data extraction, organized a recent event titled “The Novel Medical imaging Approaches for Early Drug Development Methods, technical issues and case studies” which took place at the at the Boston Marriott Cambridge, in Cambridge Massachusetts on the 16^th of September.
Bruce Hillman, Chief scientific officer, M.D., FACR, of ACR Image Metrix, carried out a presentation titled, "Methodologic Considerations in Designing Pharmaceutical Trials Using Novel Imaging Methods."ACR Image Mertix is a leader in worldwide imaging trials. Industry experts from ACR Image Metrix offered great caliber research on ways and technical problems related to clinical trials. Mehdi Adineh , Ph.D., Scientific director of ACR Image Metrix imaging core laboratory, conducted a presentation named "Increasing the Effectiveness of Novel Imaging in Clinical Trials: The Role of the Imaging Core Laboratory,” while Greg Sorenson, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital ,M.D, had a presentation titled "Mechanistic Imaging in Cancer Trials: Lessons from Glioblastoma."