SPECT

Article • PET-MRI

Clinical tests to confirm coronary heart disease

Hybrid imaging is of little clinical value. PET-MRI, according to many experts, is the best clinical procedure to confirm coronary heart disease (CHD). Report: Axel Viola

New imaging for ischaemic heart disease

A session at the forthcoming British Cardiovascular Society annual conference (2-4 June, in Manchester) will hear about the latest imaging techniques for acquired heart disease, with PET technology playing a key role in those advances.

Dual energy brings more to meet the eye

How does spectral – or dual energy – imaging work? Very similar to red and green light used in black-and-white photography. A black-and-white camera provides information on the colours of the photographed objects: an object that is black under red light is actually green.

Integrating cardiovascular imaging modalities revolutionises care

How the different advanced cardio vascular imaging technologies fit together in managing cardiac patients, will be one of the main themes explored at the International Conference on Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac CT (ICNC 11).

Perfusion imaging: The future of CT?

CT scanners now nicely cover morphology. The challenge is moving to CT functional imaging without frying patients

New tracers and hybrid systems enhance applications for SPECT

Although most nuclear medical examinations using SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) take place beyond hospitals, two to three times more SPECT exams than PET-CT exams are carried out within hospitals.

Toshiba presents advances in Cardiac Imaging at ESC 2012

Cardiology is playing an increasingly important role in today’s healthcare environment and, as a direct result, cardiologists are facing new challenges almost every day. Addressing the need of improving clinician confidence and diagnostic accuracy, Toshiba Medical Systems Europe presented two symposia on the first day of the European Congress of Cardiology, to be held in Munich, Germany, 25-28…

New diagnostic tools win the hearts of cardiologists

During the 2010 ESC meeting, held in Stockholm, new guidelines for myocardial revascularisation were handed down by a prestigious Task Force made up of representatives of both the ESC and the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons (EACTS).

Alcyone Technology

Cardiologist, nuclear medicine specialist and researcher Dr Alessia Gimelli works for the Fondazione Toscana Gabriele Monasterio, National Research Council in Pisa, Italy. For the past year she has used Discovery NM 530c, GE’s latest Nuclear Cardiology platform, featuring an innovative CZT collimation technology called Alcyone Technology.

CT and PET - Improving radiation therapy planning

When planning radiotherapy the combination of positron emission tomography (PET) and Computed tomography (CT) can provide a better outcome than CT alone. Michael Krassnitzer asked Terri Bresenham MSc BSc, Vice President for Molecular Imaging at GE Healthcare, for her views on the value of PET/CT, the new EANM guidelines, novel tracers and the future of other hybrid imaging technologies.

Molecular imaging in clinical practice

Over the past decades new imaging technologies have substantially broadened the range of imaging applications in clinical medicine. For years anatomical imaging modalities, such as X-ray and CT, reveal high-resolution information of organs and tissues over extended imaging ranges. Lately, however, the idea of functional imaging e.g. the visualisation of physiology in vivo gains importance.

Imaging and computing power leading to breakthroughs for cardiac surgery

Two members of the Heart Center at the University of Leipzig teamed up during Medica for a tour de force presentation on Future Trends in Cardiac Surgery. "The aim of the game is opening the chest through little keyholes to operate in the most minimally invasive way possible and avoid sternotomy," said Prof. Friedrich Mohr, Program Director at the Leipzig Heart Center, who review new surgical…

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.

TELEMEDICINE ADVANCES IN EUROPE

Article • Picture Archiving and Communication System

The Carestream Cardiology PACS

From this October, a newly launched, web-based cardiology PACS will change the workload of cardiologists at Groene Hart Ziekenhuis, in The Netherlands, making the 500-bed hospital one of Europe's first to benefit from this valuable system that consolidates isolated cardiac lab systems into one centralised solution.

GE's new Discovery PET/CT 600 scanners go global

GE Healthcare's first Discovery PET/CT 600-series scanners are being installed in a number of leading clinics around the world. "This first set of installations is a big step forward in the diagnosis and monitoring of disease", said Terri Bresenham, newly appointed vice- president and general manager of GE Healthcare's global Molecular Imaging business.