Over the past few years, modern appointment management has found its way into German medical practices. Nevertheless, there is significant room for improvement as some doctors can still be contacted only by phone and only during office hours.
Body composition information derived from routine chest CTs can provide important information on the overall health of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), including their risk of all-cause mortality. This is the result of a new study, published in Radiology. COPD is a group of chronic, progressive lung diseases that affect about 30 million people in the United States alone.…
Liquid metal bearing (LMB) technology has been a key aspect of extending the lifespan of CT scanners, improving workflow, and enhancing patient and operator experience via noise reduction. The LMB concept has been pioneered by Dunlee, with senior CT product manager Robert Bayerlein noting that the Hamburg-based company has a long heritage in imaging innovation.
In the move to evidence-based medicine, healthcare budgets put more pressure on efficiency, while quality of care has to meet ever increasing standards. Agfa has chosen to direct its development of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions towards helping radiology departments meet these challenges. Agfa’s SmartXR AI upgrades for its digital radiography portfolio focus on supporting operational…
AI is revamping workflows and experts showed how radiologists can integrate it into their department to improve daily practice and healthcare at ECR. The panel also discussed the health economics side of AI to help radiologists define which products make more economic sense for their department. The session tackled automated organ segmentation, an interesting application for AI in radiology.
Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) can detect prostate cancer and inform about treatment response and disease progression earlier and better than other imaging modalities. A Belgian expert will delve into the latest and future developments of the technique for prostate cancer and distant metastases imaging in a dedicated session at ECR. WB‐MRI and nuclear medicine -…
One of the leading figures in global radiology has highlighted the importance of fostering a strong eco-system to advance the safe and effective implementation of AI in medical imaging. Dr Geraldine McGinty said that to fully leverage the power of AI, all stakeholders must work together but underlined the unique responsibility physicians have to ensure patient interests are best served.
With a growing number of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to support medical imaging analysis, finding the best solution for specific radiology tasks is not always straightforward. Many are cloaked in secrecy and commercial sensitivity and while an algorithm may perform well in one area, evidence of performance and adaptability in another environment is not always available.
The management of biopsied breast lesions that are diagnosed as abnormal but are not definitively malignant is challenging and controversial. Treatment ranges from diligent follow-up, with imaging and subsequent biopsy, to surgical excision. Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna (Medizinische Universität Wien), Austria, have developed and validated a software algorithm designed to…
Harnessing the power of radiomics, and adopting an integrated approach to combine imaging and patient data could lead to better clinical cancer outcomes. The move has opened the door for clinicians to explore a non-invasive approach to identify the heterogeneity of a tumour and more accurately target regions for biopsy. During a presentation at ECR 2021 in March, Professor Evis Sala will…
Improving workflow is one of the major challenges that radiology departments face. The need to be more efficient, deliver timely and effective patient care, and keep an eye on costs are all factors that seem to be ever-present in the modern imaging department. With the added demands of the coronavirus pandemic as radiology departments continue to play a critical role in the fight against…
Clinical audit within radiology departments can help promote high quality medical care and improve patient experience, as well as provide educational and teaching opportunities. Aiming to see consistent delivery across Europe, clinical audit is currently under the initiative ‘Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Radiotherapy, and Nuclear medicine including Therapies’. The latest project…
Advances offered by Big Data and Artificial Intelligence within the healthcare environment are opening up new opportunities for radiographers. Roles in systems development, and being part of the safeguarding aspect by ensuring machine-based bias does not take over patient management, may be performed by radiographers alongside other contributions as AI plays an increasing role in healthcare.…
Pan-European lung cancer screening is challenged due to the range of approaches in different countries. As attitudes towards smoking and smoking cessation programmes vary, experts are attempting to establish more unified lung cancer screening. The introduction of consistent pan-European lung cancer screening will be outlined at a special session during the online ECR 2021, with presentations…
Building capacity, quality and safety awareness in Africa has been high on the agenda of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Society of Radiology. Transferring and adapting those concepts to African realities has been the focus of Boudjema Mansouri, a professor of radiology in Algiers, Algeria, who will explain the challenges that this task entails in a session…
Dynamic cardiovascular applications now have their gold standard available, reports radiology equipment manufacturer Thales: The Pixium 3040 F is benefiting from the best of all technologies in one detector. 15 years of Trixell technologies in dynamic flat panel detectors, are brought together into the Pixium 3040 F from Thales. This high-end flat panel detector is specifically designed for 2D…
Carestream Health will highlight cutting-edge medical imaging technologies at the largest radiology meeting in Europe—the virtual European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna, Austria, beginning on March 3. The company will feature a wide range of products that demonstrates its leadership in digital medical imaging capture and processing, and improved user and workflow experiences.
Hospital data from a wide range of disciplines, departments and specialties strongly influences crucial decision-making and planning. Agfa HealthCare’s Business Intelligence solution, for example, uses data to measure, understand and predict developments, and aims to present this information in an accessible and transparent way so that administrators need not even ask for in-house generated…
In order to detect the Corona virus SARS-CoV-2, there are further methods of diagnosis apart from the globally used PCR tests (Polymerase chain reaction): The infection can also be recognised on CT scans – for which Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used as well. An AI system can not only filter CT scan of Covid-19 patients from a data set, but also estimate, which areas of the image are of…
Hybrid PET/CT imaging can fully play to its strengths and steer treatment towards more effective procedures for diagnosing prostate cancer. The examination of the specific antigen PSMA with hybrid PET imaging enables treatment monitoring with significantly higher diagnostic accuracy than conventional imaging and therefore, Professor Clemens Cyran believes, will soon become the standard diagnostic…
Medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra has received an order for its digital pathology solution from Amsterdam UMC in the Netherlands. This follows a recently announced radiology imaging contract. With radiology and pathology in one joint solution, Amsterdam UMC will be able to conveniently share images and information between the two medical specialties, enabling efficient…
AI can help tackle inequities and bias in healthcare but it also brings partiality issues of its own, experts explained in a Hot Topic session entitled "Artificial Intelligence and Implications for Health Equity: Will AI Improve Equity or Increase Disparities?" at RSNA.
Displaying medical images from different modalities such as CT, CR/DR, MR, ultrasound or mammography and pathology on one monitor - that is what most radiologists want. Many of them still use several medical displays next to each other. JVCKenwood's new CL-S1200 30.9-inch colour monitor makes this a thing of the past. The 12 megapixel device (4,200 horizontal and 2,800 vertical) can display…
The sudden spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 has considerably exacerbated the issue as it forced the closure of “non-essential” radiology activities while dramatically increasing the number of patients requiring a scan.
Covid-19 causes characteristic changes in lung tissue visible in CT scans and chest radiographs, known as “ground-glass” opacities. Imaging is now considered a valid alternative, possibly even superior to RT-PCR. ‘This sparked an international debate about the role of CT in the diagnostic work-up of Covid-19,’ said radiologist Professor Cornelia Schäfer-Prokop.