Imaging News and Research

RSS

MMRGlobal, Fujitsu collaborate to offer cost-effective transition to electronic medical records

MMRGlobal, Inc. and Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., the market leader in document imaging scanners, announced today a strategic alignment to assist physicians in smaller practices to efficiently digitize their medical records and comply with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act's meaningful use requirement to provide patients timely online access to their medical records by the end of 2014.

18 Jun 2012

FDA clears LensAR Laser System for anterior capsulotomy

LensAR Inc., developer of the LensAR Laser System for cataract surgery, announced today that it has received 510(k) clearance from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the company's next-generation commercial system, for use in anterior capsulotomy, with and without laser phacofragmentation during cataract surgery.

18 Jun 2012

Concord Medical acquires 52% equity ownership in Chang'an Hospital

Concord Medical Services Holdings Limited, a leading specialty hospital management solution provider and operator of the largest network of radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging centers in China, announced today that it has closed the acquisition of 52% equity ownership in Chang'an Hospital, a leading non-public general hospital located in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.

18 Jun 2012

Lower dose study using Toshiba AIDR 3D with Aquilion ONE CT system

Today's healthcare facilities seek to manage patient radiation dose while maintaining high image quality for accurate diagnoses. Dr. Jeff Dardinger from St. Elizabeth Healthcare in Edgewood, Ky., will discuss the initial findings of using Toshiba's AIDR 3D with the AquilionTM ONE CT system to lower dose while maintaining high image quality across multiple CT exams.

18 Jun 2012

NHS Supply Chain signs deal to purchase 10 Elekta Synergy radiation therapy treatment systems

NHS Supply Chain will bring state-of-the-art cancer treatment to the United Kingdom by signing a deal to purchase ten Elekta Synergy radiation therapy treatment systems.

From Elekta 18 Jun 2012

A third of ED imaging for PE is avoidable

Data from 12 hospitals in the USA indicate that one-third of imaging performed in the emergency department for suspected pulmonary embolism is avoidable, according to a National Quality Forum measure.

15 Jun 2012

Research examines link between metabolic syndrome and cognitive disorders

No effective treatments are currently available for the prevention or cure of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most frequent form of dementia in the elderly. The most recognized risk factors, advancing age and having the apolipoprotein E Ɛ4 gene, cannot be modified or treated. Increasingly, scientists are looking toward other risk factors to identify preventive and therapeutic strategies.

15 Jun 2012

Simple exercise stress test still the most widely used medical test for coronary artery disease

Most people might assume that technology first developed in 1928 would be obsolete by now. But from air conditioned buildings to sliced bread, many inventions of that era are still essential to our lives today. That includes the exercise stress test, which is still the most widely used medical test for coronary artery disease.

15 Jun 2012

Advances in robotic spine surgery

1. Please could you give a brief outline of robotic spine surgery and its recent history? Robotic spine surgery is very new, less than 10 years old. There are only 10 hospitals in the US offering it and we are the second hospital in California to offer this technology.

15 Jun 2012

IBMT linked with positive structural changes in brain connectivity

A Texas Tech University scientist studying the Chinese mindfulness meditation known as integrative body-mind training (IBMT) said he and other researchers have confirmed and expanded on changes in structural efficiency of white matter in the brain that can be related to positive behavioral changes in subjects practicing the technique for a month and a minimum of 11 hours total.

14 Jun 2012

Alpha-myosin triggers development of autoimmunity after heart attack

After people with type 1 diabetes have a heart attack, their long-term chance of suffering even more heart damage skyrockets. But the reason has long puzzled scientists. Now researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified the misstep that sparks this runaway chronic damage and a promising way to block it.

14 Jun 2012

Use, overuse of imaging tests adds about $100 billion to U.S. medical bills

The use of diagnostic imaging has nearly tripled since the mid-1990s, according to a new study, raising questions about whether the benefits outweigh the risks of increased radiation exposure.

14 Jun 2012

Cancers often recur after treatment with single drugs that “target” tumor cells’ genetic pathways

Targeted cancer cell therapies using man-made proteins dramatically shrink many tumors in the first few months of treatment, but new research from Johns Hopkins scientists finds why the cells all too often become resistant, the treatment stops working, and the disease returns.

14 Jun 2012

NEJM hails vismodegib as ‘the greatest advance in therapy yet seen’ for advanced BCC

Vismodegib, a new skin cancer drug for patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma tested by TGen, Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare and Mayo Clinic, is hailed as "the greatest advance in therapy yet seen" for advanced basal cell carcinoma in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.

14 Jun 2012

Researchers use brain imaging to uncover susceptibility to psychological stress and trauma

Most people have intense emotional reactions to traumatizing events like road accidents or combat. But some suffer far longer, caught in the grip of long-term debilitating disorders such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Because doctors cannot predict who will develop these disorders, however, early or preventive intervention is not available. Now, a new project led by researchers at Tel Aviv University seeks to identify pre-traumatic subjects - those who are more susceptible to long-standing disorders if exposed to a traumatic incident.

14 Jun 2012

RNA-binding proteins accumulate in the brains of patients with AD

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a novel group of proteins that accumulate in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. These findings, which appear online in the Journal of Neuroscience, may open up novel approaches to diagnose and stage the progression likelihood of the disease in Alzheimer patients.

14 Jun 2012

Significant increase in use of CT, MRI and PET imaging over the last two decades

Among six large integrated health care systems between 1996 and 2010 there was a substantial increase in the use of advanced diagnostic imaging, including approximately a tripling of the use of computed tomography and nearly a quadrupling of the use of magnetic resonance imaging, as well as a substantial increase in estimated radiation exposure, according to a study in the June 13 issue of JAMA.

13 Jun 2012

First Edition: June 13, 2012

Today's headlines feature reports about new government projections for the nation's health care spending and the latest from the campaign trail.

13 Jun 2012

New study on motor chunking

You pick up your cell phone and dial the new number of a friend. Ten numbers. One. Number. At. A. Time. Because you haven't actually typed the number before, your brain handles each button press separately, as a sequence of distinct movements.

13 Jun 2012

Children of GBS meningitis continue to have substantial long-term morbidity

Parents of infants who survive bacterial meningitis caused by group B Streptococcus might have to live with the effects of the disease on their children long after they're discharged from the hospital. A new study in the journal Pediatrics finds that even though mortality rates of children infected with GBS meningitis have decreased in the past 25 years, just under half of children who survive the disease will suffer impairment as a result of the disease.

13 Jun 2012