“It wouldn’t surprise me if in five or 10 years this procedure replaced awake [deep brain simulation surgery],” Jason M. Schwalb, MD, director of movement disorder and behavioral neurosurgery at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, said in an interview. However, Schwalb confirmed that the data to support intraoperative MRI as a complete replacement for the conventional awake technique are not yet available.

Four experts attempted to set straight the record on accelerated partial breast brachytherapy (APBI) after a Dec. 7 presentation by MD Anderson researchers at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, which concluded that APBI is associated with inferior effectiveness and increased toxicity compared with whole breast irradiation in older women. The researchers outlined numerous flaws ranging from the data source to study design to omitted information, during a teleconference on Dec. 13.

More than half of women will receive at least one false-positive recall after 10 years of annual mammography screening, according to a study published Oct. 18 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The findings may fan the flames of the screening debate as an accompanying editorial suggested that the results support screening intervals of two years or more. However, educating women about the incidence of false positives may reduce anxiety, according to the lead author.

While the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC’s) overall goal to scrap the government’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula is commendable, most say the commission is going about it the wrong way and have asked MedPAC to rethink its proposal. A MedPAC solution, proposal in September, was recommended by members in a 15-2 vote Oct. 6; however, most say the plan needs reworking, particularly because the proposal to overturn SGR is laced with long-term freezes and cuts to physician payments.

One of the variables with the effects of cancer is hypoxia, and a PET-based imaging technique may be capable of measuring and mapping it. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are focusing on two aspects of the investigational PET probe Cu-62 ATSM for hypoxia imaging.

The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) recent recommendation to eliminate the 510(k) clearance process for medical devices has prompted a sharp exchange between its leaders and medical device manufacturers.

7T MRI may provide the key to improved patient selection and surgical planning for patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, the most common form of epilepsy, according to research published online July 11 in Radiology.

Microscopic gold particles could multiply the effectiveness of standard cancer radiation therapy by acting as tiny missiles that destroy blood vessels feeding cancerous tumors. Early research about this method, which could shorten cancer treatment and make it more effective, is being presented at the 2011 Joint Meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP).

Two tiny genetic variations can predict which patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma are most likely to develop radiation-induced second cancers years after treatment, according to a genome-wide association study (GWAS) published online July 24 in Nature Medicine. Knowing in advance who is at risk could help physicians tailor treatment to reduce the risks for patients who are most susceptible to long-term damage.

High-pitch, dual-source CT scanners may enable physicians to sustain diagnostic accuracy while allowing up to seven-fold reductions in pediatric radiation dose, according to a study presented this weekend at the Society of Cardiovascular CT (SCCT) in Denver.

Two years ago, University of Chicago Hospitals launched a Continuous Quality Improvement project aimed at reining in the impact of reimbursement cuts in CT imaging. The project revised the definition of turn-around time, applied basic principles of electronic workflow orchestration to the scanning suite and yielded astounding results, shared Paul J. Chang, MD, professor and vice chairman, radiology informatics and medical director, enterprise imaging at University of Chicago Hospitals.

The private practice of cardiology has been “under assault” since well before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) due to greater reimbursement cuts in this setting, causing a push toward hospital employment, according to a May 24 editorial in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. However, author Alexander A. Stratienko, MD, told Cardiovascular Business that the current model of integration should not have to equate to hospital employment.

Responsible for 2.1 million injuries and 50,000 deaths annually in the U.S., traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death in individuals under the age of 35. The incidence among deployed soldiers is also high, with one study suggesting as many as 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have some form of TBI.

Measurable medical errors that harmed patients cost an estimated $17.1 billion in 2008, according to research published in the April edition of Health Affairs. This figure amounted to 0.72 percent of the $2.39 trillion spent on healthcare that year in the U.S.

Researchers have been well aware of the high likelihood that individuals suffering from memory loss will convert to Alzheimer’s, but  now physicians have a way of predicting an individual patient’s risk of developing the disease, according to an April 6 study published in Radiology. This closes a research gap that crippled early detection and the induction of therapeutic trials for Alzheimer’s.

More often than not, incidental findings do more harm than good, leading to unnecessary imaging and excessive angst—so that non-indicated physiology in imaging may be better off behind a dark screen rather than seen as a free screen by which to assess patients’ health, argued the authors of a commentary published March 28 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

When referring physicians and patients focus nearly exclusively on radiation risk, they may overlook other, and perhaps more significant, risks associated with medical procedures, according to a clinical perspective published in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Small studies assessing the efficacy of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) to diagnose or rule out coronary artery disease (CAD) have been the staple reference standard for its adoption. But a new era of comparative-effectiveness research is unfolding as CCTA will be tested against other validated cardiac imaging modalities, in particular, SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI).

Forty-two miles north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in the notorious Sunni Triangle lies the largest U.S. military hospital in Iraq, the 332^nd Expeditionary Medical Group in Balad. This level III facility is the epicenter of the military’s highest-ever survival rate—for soldiers wounded on the Iraqi battlefield, 98 times out of 100, if they make it to Balad, physicians will save their lives.

The current crisis of the Japanese nuclear reactors as a result of the natural disasters should have “a fairly small impact on the U.S. attempts to develop medical isotopes domestically,” Robert W. Atcher, PhD, MBA, leader of the medical isotope task force and past-president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM), explained in an interview.