MRI Alert!
The scanner shortage in France is a scandal, says chairman of the French Society of Radiology. New MRIs must be installed in 250 emergency departments
PET-CT vs. whole-body MRI
For many indications, because PET-CT produces a very high accuracy for many tumours, this modality is the gold standard, Prof. Reiser confirmed. It also enables good observation of the course of the disease. After an injection of radioactive tracers we can visualise increased metabolic activity in great detail and with high sensitivity. This is an increasingly important issue not only in primary…
An affair of the heart
The heart of cardiac radiology set the rhythm for this October's 10th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Cardiac Radiology (ESCR) in Leipzig, when state-of-the art technology and progress in cardiac imaging were introduced alongside an educational programme that catered for experienced as well as novice cardiac radiologists
Expanding your diagnostic imaging services?
If you need to expand your diagnostic imaging services and a fixed installation is too costly but a mobile solution cannot cover your demand, Alliance Medical, Europe's largest provider of out-sourced diagnostic imaging services, reports that it could become your partner. "Did you ever think about a semi-static installation?" the company asks. "The services we can offer by far exceed the…
The brain - A promising target for multimodal imaging
Integrated PET/MRI systems will permit the simultaneous acquisition of molecular, functional and structural parameters. The combined strengths of PET (high sensitivity and specificity, but relatively low spatial resolution) and MRI (high resolution, but low sensitivity) is the most attractive feature of multimodal imaging with hybrid scanners. Their application could substantially contribute to…
Safeguarding the future of MRI
Europe holds a leading position in the research and development of MRI, which has been used for over 25 years, imaging up to 500 million patients without evidence of harm to workers due to EMF exposure. It is also well known that MRI is free from health risks associated with ionising radiation such as X-rays, in many situations the alternative to MRI
Outsourcing diagnostic services
Alliance Medical is Europe´s largest provider of outsourced diagnostic imaging services, with over 15 years of unparalleled operational and service excellence, with offices in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands.
Radiation: Potential risk from medical procedures is small
There's no reason to forgo a needed radiation-based medical procedure because of concerns about cancer risk, according to the October issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter. While the volume of radiation-based tests and procedures has increased in the past three decades, scientists haven't proven that the low doses of radiation used in medical settings actually increase cancer risk.
Imaging Crucial for personalized medicine
'Personalized medicine' -- where therapy is designed for the individual patient -- is a popular concept in healthcare today, but according to a new market research report, it will be driven by the imaging industry, especially the new molecular technologies. If images can reveal not just the heightened metabolic activity characteristic of tumors but the tumors' chemical signatures, physicians can…
Role of New Software and Technology
In the last fifteen years, myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging (MPI) has been performed most commonly by dual-head conventional scintillation cameras with parallel-hole collimators, configured in a 90ºdetector geometry and image reconstruction based on standard filtered back projection (FBP) algorithms. Such arrangement, although clinically well established suffers from important limitations…
GE Healthcare launched Discovery NM/CT 670
GE Healthcare announced the European launch of Discovery NM/CT 670, a hybrid imaging platform designed to improve workflow, dose management, and overall image quality.
Molekulare Bildgebung von Karzinomen
Chirurgen an der Charité haben in kolorektalem Tumorgewebe eine spezifische Anhäufung von Protoporphyrin-IX (PpIX), einem rot-fluoreszierenden Vorläufermolekül des Häms beobachtet. Wir konnten zeigen, dass diese Anhäufung von PpIX darauf zurückzuführen ist, dass das Enzym, das PpIX normalerweise in Häm überführt, die sogenannte…
Gynaecological cancer treatment enters new era of patient-tailored care
Advances in cancer prevention and treatment reported at this week´s premier European congress for specialists in gynaecological cancers show that care is being more effectively tailored to the needs of individual women, so that survival can be improved without the cost of added complications and reduced quality of life.
Siemens Biograph mCT PET/CT
Siemens Healthcare reported at the annual meeting of the European Association of Nuclear medicine (EANM) in Barcelona, Spain, that leading hospitals in England, France, Germany and Monaco have shown strong interest and adoption of the Biograph mCT, the worlds first molecular CT, to fuel advanced diagnostic capabilities and to drive greater workflow efficiencies.
Siemens wins service contract from large US clinic
The University of Pennsylvania Health System, one of the largest health systems in the US, has awarded a $135 million contract for Integrated Service Management to Siemens Healthcare. Over the next seven years, Siemens will be servicing and ensuring around-the-clock availability of diagnostic systems and bio-medical devices from diverse manufacturers in the customer´s various hospitals.
GE Healthcare launches Global initiative for digital mammography
In addition to being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this October is the tenth anniversary of digital mammography, a technology introduced by GE Healthcare in 1999. Similar to digital photography, digital mammography replaces the film used in traditional mammography with digital files viewed and stored on computers.
ECCO 15 and 34th ESMO Multidisciplinary Congress unites European Oncology
The first joint congress ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) is taking place this week in Berlin. It is the only congress in Europe that covers the entire spectrum of cancer from basic science and translational research, to prevention, treatment, nursing and supportive care for all types of tumours.
New European Academy of Cancer Sciences founded
A new initiative designed to inform and educate policymakers at national, European, and global level about the needs of the oncology community was launched at Europe's largest cancer congress, ECCO 15 — ESMO 34, in Berlin. The European Academy of Cancer Sciences will help to keep the interests of cancer patients at the forefront of the policy agenda, and avoid policy decisions that had a…
Improving survival of metastatic breast cancer patients
Removal of the primary breast tumour in women whose cancer has already spread to other parts of the body can have a significant effect on their survival, Dutch researchers have found. Their research meant that women who were diagnosed at a late stage of the disease could expect to survive longer. They discovered that those patients who had received surgery survived for considerably longer than…
Colorectal cancer today and tomorrow
Colorectal cancer (CRC) jointly describes cancers of the colon and rectum. Worldwide, CRCs are among the most common cancers. In Europe and the USA the occurrence of CRCs are considerably higher than in Africa and Asia.
All Images in a Single View
With its new diagnostic reporting software for breast imaging in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Siemens Healthcare provides radiologists with new opportunities in Women's Health. The syngo BreVis diagnostic reporting software shows all of a patient's examination results in a single view - for example ultrasound or radiography images next to the images from magnetic resonance imaging -…
Transcatheter aortic valve implantation
Today, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) represents an effective therapeutic alternative to conventional aortic valve replacement for patients who are at high risk or with contraindications to surgery, and the combination of the transfemoral and transapical approaches further increases the number of patients who can be treated.
The role of exercise training in cardiovascular health
Western societies are struggling to pay for their ever increasing medical budgets. In the US up to 393 billion US-$ were spent in 2005 for cardiovascular diseases alone. Based on epidemiologic studies in primary prevention it is reasonable to estimate that 30% of coronary heart disease and stroke could be prevented by 2.5 hours of brisk walking per week.
Validation of the value of cardiovascular MR
After two years of intensive work the results from the German pilot phase of the EuroCMR Register are due to be published in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology*, and also presented and discussed in detail at this year's ECR in Barcelona.
"Any cath lab that is not open 24/7 should be closed"
Surviving a heart attack depends upon where you live in Europe. For cardiologists that is unacceptable. A majority of European countries can deliver life-saving primary percutaneous coronary interventions (P-PCI), yet too often these centres are closed over weekends or after working hours - when 50% of all myocardial infarctions occur.
