As a woman ages, her chances of being diagnosed with a lower-risk breast tumor increase, according to a study published in the December 2011 issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. The study showed that for women over age 50, a substantial number of cancers detected by mammograms have good prognoses.

Women with mammographically dense breasts not only face a higher risk of breast cancer, but their tumors also are more likely to have more aggressive characteristics than women with less dense breasts, according to a study published online July 27 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The automated measurement of temporoparietal brain region volumes is a highly accurate predictor of memory loss in healthy elderly persons, indicating that these underlying characteristics could help clinicians identify likely cases of pre-clinical Alzheimer’s and enable them eventually to prevent the disease’s progression, according to an article published in the June issue of Radiology.

Although medical professionals are concerned about bias introduced from commercial funding of continuing medical education (CME), many are not willing to pay higher fees to offset or eliminate such funding sources, according to a survey published May 9 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

A new day is dawning for breast cancer diagnosis, treatment and monitoring with the help of molecular imaging.

FDG-PET is highly accurate in diagnosing progressive neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) even if cognitive dysfunction is only mild. Thus, novel brain imaging probes targeting, for instance, beta-amyloid will likely serve a different purpose. They will play an important role if beta-amyloid is confirmed as a molecular target of effective therapy, and drugs that target beta-amyloid are actually developed.

Community radiologists can select from an array of dose management strategies to “counter the wave of alarm over the small and unproven risks of low-dose radiation that is sweeping the country and threatens to undermine the considerable benefits that accrue from careful and judicious use of modern CT technology,” according to a clinical perspective published in this month's American Journal of Roentgenology.