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ATS: VA lung cancer study embraces broader screening criteria
May 21, 2013 -- A small CT lung cancer screening study of U.S. veterans found a higher rate of disease compared to the landmark National Lung Screening Trial, according to results presented at this week's American Thoracic Society (ATS) meeting in Philadelphia. The higher prevalence could fuel debate surrounding the criteria for patient selection.

CAD helps detect and treat skull fusion in infants
May 20, 2013 -- Computer-aided detection (CAD) technology can be an invaluable tool for quantitative diagnosis and treatment planning of craniosynostosis, or premature fusion of skull sutures in infants, researchers from Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, have found.

4D musculoskeletal CT offers window into joint disorders
May 17, 2013 -- There's still a lot to learn about how bones interact in joints during movement, but 4D musculoskeletal CT can help close that knowledge gap, paving the way for new understanding of joint disorders and how to treat them, according to researchers from Monash Health Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

A radiologist reflects on the Boston Marathon bombings
May 16, 2013 -- Monday, April 15 -- Patriots' Day in Boston -- started much like any other day for radiologist Dr. Robert Ward of Tufts Medical Center. But it turned out to be anything but normal after two bombs exploded at the end of the Boston Marathon, sending dozens of injured people to Tufts with battlefield-like injuries.

Technologists' CT training called woefully inadequate
May 15, 2013 -- CT might be the mainstay of medical imaging, but the basic curriculum for radiologic technologist training hardly mentions the modality, and training centers that do teach it are few and far between, according to a talk on May 10 at the Virtual Symposium on Radiation Safety and Computed Tomography.

CCTA for chest pain cuts costs, admissions
May 14, 2013 -- One of the largest studies yet comparing medical resource use and outcomes among chest pain patients found that coronary CT angiography (CCTA) reduced medical resource utilization compared to standard care, generating fewer hospital admissions and shorter emergency room stays, researchers reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

ACCP recommends lung cancer screening with CT
May 7, 2013 -- The American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) today recommended lung cancer screening with low-dose CT for patients at high risk of the disease. But the new guidelines closely follow more conservative recommendations for screening.

AATS: Low-dose CT outruns x-ray for lung cancer surveillance
May 6, 2013 -- In a study of more than 300 patients undergoing surveillance after lung cancer surgery, ultralow-dose CT far outperformed chest radiography for detecting cancer recurrence, concluded a study presented this week at the 2013 American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) meeting in Minneapolis.

Trauma CT is overkill for transferred patients
April 29, 2013 -- When trauma patients are transferred to an emergency department from another institution, a standard trauma CT protocol is the last thing you want to do, say researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Focused imaging based on the individual patient's medical history and clinical findings is more useful, they concluded.

Decision support takes bite out of duplicate CT exams
April 26, 2013 -- Clinical decision-support (CDS) software that alerts physicians if they are about to order a duplicate imaging exam was effective in tests conducted in Massachusetts. In an April 22 article in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers reported that doctors who used CDS software had six times the rate of canceled CT exams.

ARRS: Low-dose CT may produce measurement discrepancies
April 18, 2013 -- WASHINGTON, DC - The use of low-dose CT protocols could produce disturbing discrepancies in measurements of lung nodule and lymph node volumes compared with high-dose scans, according to according a study presented Wednesday at the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) meeting.

CT scans do double duty as osteoporosis test
April 16, 2013 -- In an era of healthcare cuts that often lead to fewer procedures being performed, existing CT data offer the rare advantage of a free extra test -- namely a bone mineral density study that's there for the taking but that usually goes unused, according to an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Advanced CT reconstruction improves cardiac plaque assessment
April 12, 2013 -- Automated plaque assessment in coronary CT angiography is a promising new way to evaluate a patient's plaque burden quickly and noninvasively -- but it won't be quick or accurate without the use of advanced iterative reconstruction, according to researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Automated CT dose maps tailor radiation dose to patients
April 8, 2013 -- A new technique aimed at mapping CT radiation dose individually for each patient is showing just how far from reality the current standard for calculating dose can be, especially in obese patients, researchers concluded at the 2013 European Congress of Radiology.

3D wide-area CT distinguishes tracheomalacia from stenosis
April 3, 2013 -- Dynamic wide-area CT can easily distinguish two different but similar-appearing types of central airway narrowing that are hard to diagnose on conventional MDCT. Even a low-dose protocol captures the information reliably, according to researchers from China.

CT postprocessing can aid evaluation of pediatric airways
April 1, 2013 -- Because it's noninvasive and doesn't require anesthesia, CT postprocessing offers significant advantages over the gold standard of bronchoscopy for evaluating pediatric airways. Yet there are even more benefits, according to an article published recently in Pediatric Radiology.

New Texas radiation rule takes effect May 1
March 28, 2013 -- Hoping to avoid the rash of radiation overexposures that shook California radiology like an earthquake a few years back, the state of Texas has decided to implement its own radiation exposure rule beginning May 1.

Software saves time in quantifying pleural effusions on MDCT
March 27, 2013 -- A software tool can swiftly and accurately perform semiautomated volumetric quantification of pleural effusions on MDCT studies, yielding significant time savings over manual quantification methods, according to researchers from Northwestern University.

CORE 320 study evaluates CCTA and SPECT for CAD diagnosis
March 25, 2013 -- A new comparative effectiveness study has found that 320-detector-row coronary CT angiography (CCTA) is better than SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD). But MPI still helps avoid unnecessary cardiac catheterization and revascularization.

Managing CT dose is feasible, with a little help from friends
March 22, 2013 -- In light of heightened public awareness about the need to lower CT radiation dose, more radiology practices are tackling the issue. They can learn from the example of a community hospital in Connecticut, which implemented a successful dose reduction program as described in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

Study affirms CCTA's value to rule out myocardial infarction
March 19, 2013 -- Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) is clinically safe and may use medical resources more effectively than conventional methods for evaluating chest pain in patients who are at low or intermediate risk of myocardial infarction, according to research presented earlier this month at the American College of Cardiology meeting.

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