Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Managing CT radiation dose was a hot topic at last week's RSNA 2011 meeting in Chicago, and the focus continues this week with a workshop on tracking radiation dose sponsored by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, under way today and tomorrow in Washington, DC.
Although the workshop is under way as you're reading this, we're featuring a report in our CT Digital Community by international editor Eric Barnes on what's been presented so far.
The first presentations at the symposium have focused on efforts by regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the International Atomic Energy Agency to track radiation dose.
Get an early report on the proceedings by ct.auntminnie.com, for more coverage of this important meeting.
Breast MRI from San Antonio
In other news, we're highlighting a new study in our Women's Imaging Digital Community on the effectiveness of breast MRI, presented at this week's San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
Researchers from the University of Washington used diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) imaging to see if breast MRI could help with treatment planning and predicting a patient's prognosis.
They found statistically significant correlations between the MRI measures and histological markers such as progesterone receptor status and genetic predisposition. Learn more by clicking here, or visit the community at women.auntminnie.com.
![Images show the pectoralis muscles of a healthy male individual who never smoked (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; body mass index [BMI, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared], 28.4; number of cigarette pack-years, 0; forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1], 97.6% predicted; FEV1: forced vital capacity [FVC] ratio, 0.71; pectoralis muscle area [PMA], 59.4 cm2; pectoralis muscle volume [PMV], 764 cm3) and a male individual with a smoking history and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; BMI, 27.5; number of cigarette pack-years, 43.2, FEV1, 48% predicted; FEV1:FVC, 0.56; PMA, 35 cm2; PMV, 480.8 cm3) from the Canadian Cohort Obstructive Lung Disease (i.e., CanCOLD) study. The CT image is shown in the axial plane. The PMV is automatically extracted using the developed deep learning model and overlayed onto the lungs for visual clarity.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/03/genkin.25LqljVF0y.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)