In addition to avoiding exposure to ionizing radiation, stress cardiac MR (CMR) myocardial perfusion imaging is an effective and robust risk-stratifying tool for patients of either sex presenting with possible ischemia, according to a study in the August issue of JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.
CT scans performed in the emergency department (ED) increased 330 percent between 1996 and 2007, and may be reducing the frequency of hospitalization or transfer for emergency patients, according to a study published online Aug. 8 in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Cardiac CT offers physicians strong predictions of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) in ED patients presenting with chest pain, supplementing clinical risk scores and offering a two-year MACE-free warranty period in the absence of coronary artery disease (CAD), according to the two-year outcomes of the ROMICAT study published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Written by C.P. Kaiser
Last year, the SNM received a $48,000 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop comparative-effectiveness research (CER) of PET and other molecular imaging techniques. The primary emphasis is on the diagnosis and management of cancer patients, but both cardiology and neurology questions are being addressed. Far beyond the dollars, too, is a significant increase in intellectual capital being expended across the globe on the role of CER in molecular imaging.
On top of the shifting climate of healthcare delivery, radiologists have remained some of the least involved providers in the transition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), a move that could pose important risks to radiologists and the specialty as a whole, argued the authors of a May 2 article in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
NEW ORLEANS—ACC tackled tough questions associated with the use of integrated cardiovascular imaging and suggested that demonstrating improved patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness is quite complex but absolutely necessary. The specialty of cardiology needs to embrace randomized controlled trials to delineate the value of and roles for cardiac imaging modalities, according to a panel of experts in an Integrated Imaging Spotlight session held Sunday at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
Although coronary CT angiography (CTA) can be employed to stratify risk and expedite the work-up of chest pain patients, its utilization dropped in 2008, and the exam may be severely underutilized, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. The authors reported that SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging was used 44 times as often as coronary CTA.
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