What connects these: dementia research; the development of a procedure for fast, cost efficient gene sequencing; protein research; modern IT infrastructures, and the determination of reimbursement structures for medical procedures? Answer: Two extremely small common denominators: Bits and bytes. This means data and, increasingly, mass data, which now forms the foundation of medicine. The question…
In technical terms ‘hybrid’ is a system that connects two technologies so they may benefit from each other. This also applies to the newest generation of operating theatre*: hybrid OTs combine diagnostic and surgical facilities that are usually found in separate locations. Thus procedures can be carried out in less time and involve less discomfort and risk for the patient.
A statement by Jochen Franke, CEO of Philips Healthcare Germany, Austria and Switzerlandand, Head of the Advisory Council at MEDICA 2010.
A double-edged sword would be a good analogy for diagnostic imaging in 2010. New ways to utilise imaging technologies are being developed, imaging equipment is doing more, faster than ever, and image processing software is increasingly innovative. Today's radiology exams are ‘slicing’ through the body to reveal anatomy with increasing clarity for better diagnoses and therapeutic treatment…
A cardiologist at a UK hospital has become the first in the world to develop a technique to ‘slice’ 3-D images of the heart into intricate sections using computer software. The method, devised by consultant congenital cardiologist Dr Joseph Vettukattil at Southampton General Hospital, is known as multiplane review (MPR) 3-D echocardiography. This allows cardiologists to identify heart defects…
Tissue hardness provides radiologists and gynaecologists with significant information to help distinguish between benign and malignant tumours. Tumour tissue is harder and less malleable than normal glandular and fatty tissues. Therefore, the classification of tissue hardness determines whether a biopsy is necessary. For breast diagnoses, real-time tissue elastography, along with conventional…
This is imaging with a ‘wow’-effect: The Swedish Centre for Medical Image Science & Visualisation (CMIV) in cooperation with the Norrkoping Visualisation Centre has developed a ‘Virtual Autopsy Table’ that allows a unique look inside the human body and takes interaction with volumetric medical data to a new level.
7,000 people from 120 countries met in Stockholm this September to hear international experts discuss the progress, solutions and challenges of one of our greatest healthcare burdens. Prevention, self-monitoring, surgery, guidelines, economic problems, drug-safety, and co-morbidities – these are just a few of the problems associated with the care of about 55 million diabetics in Europe.
The project consortium Alarm has developed new software to enable a computer-assisted triage-system for mass accidents and catastrophes. Torsten Schröder, emergency physician at the Charité Clinic for Anaesthesiology, with the focus on operative Intensive Care Medicine in Berlin, gave a mid-term review of the project and explained the advantages of the IT-supported triage-system for…
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.
In a European Hospital interview Professor Herman Requardt, Head of Corporate Technology and CEO of Siemens Healthcare Sector, offered his views on current and future healthcare manufacturing needs as well as the market challenge arising from the dynamic economic ascent of other nations.
With the greyscale display MS31i2, Totoku has introduced the first 3 Megapixel with ISD Technology. The high resolution display is suitable especially for X-ray diagnosis and thorax images, the company reports, adding: ‘With its high brightness of up to 1500 cd/m² it offers a very long backlight lifetime.’
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and microwave ablation repeatedly compare well with surgery in the treatment of primary and secondary liver, kidney and lung tumours and the palliative care of bone cancer. Thus oncologists are increasingly attracted to using bloodless, non-invasive treatment methods. High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), primarily used in myoma therapy, is leading medical…
EIZO GmbH, Display Technologies and Ondal Industrietechnik GmbH announce their partnership to provide monitor carrying systems, monitors and accessories as system solutions. These are suitable to use in interventional radiology as well as in standard and hybrid operating rooms.
Advancing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) up the Tesla scale may sound good, but will it produce the results and patient safety radiologists actually desire? Faced with the question: ‘How many Tesla should it be?’, Professor Siegfried Trattnig MD, head of the Centre of Excellence in high-field MRI at the University Clinic for Radiodiagnostics, Medical University of Vienna, and Austria’s…
Even more precise diagnoses, even better process controls -- the future of MR-PET technology has dawned. The first commercial, full-body hybrid scanners are either waiting in the wings or already installed. But what does the introduction of the MR-PET really mean for clinical practice? Professor Heinz-Peter Schlemmer MD, Head of the Radiology Department at the German Cancer Research Centre in…
It’s been around for decades, re-emerged in the ’90s and, today, experts see a bright future for tomosynthesis technology. Thus its progress and future developments, plus specialist uses (e.g. breast) will be a particular feature at the Radiological Society of North America scientific assembly and annual meeting in Chicago this year.
Detection of circulating and disseminated tumour cells in blood is a promising method to diagnose cancer dissemination, or to follow up cancer patients during therapy. Today’s methods and involve time-consuming (more than a day) sample processing and cell isolation steps -- all labour intensive and expensive. A lab-on-chip that could integrate those processing steps would enable faster,…
Ikerlan-IK4 and Mondragón Unibertsitatea are taking part in a project initiated by the Spanish National Research Council, CSIC, and which has developed a microchip capable of separating and extracting tumour cells in the blood stream by means of ultrasonic waves. The Foundation General Hospital of the University of Elche, together with researcher Alfredo Carrato, has also collaborated on this…
The reprocessing of single use medical devices is well-established in Europe. However, questions about the risk for patients and users arise constantly. The European Commission presented recently a kind of risk survey. The report strikes German experts as basically accurate but unbalanced.
Developed in partnership with international cardiologists, Medison reports that its EKO7 Cardiovascular Ultrasound system is a dedicated Cardiovascular Ultrasound system ‘…with 2-D Image Quality that you would expect from a premium class ultrasound system. As a matter of fact, the same applies to the colour Doppler, Pulsed Wave Doppler and CWD. So the EKO7 has excellent image quality, a…
Whenever a clinic sets up a new operating room or intensive care unit, the equipment should be able to meet all requirements for the next 20 years. At the same time, however, tight budgets increasingly restrict many hospitals’ freedom to act.
Late in 2009, GE Healthcare’s 64 slice PET/CT Discovery 690 began its use in the University Clinic for Nuclear Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria. Apart from routine clinical examinations for treatment control via FDG (fluorodeoxyglucose), the scanner is also employed in clinical research - particularly for Gallium 68DOTA PET/CT examination.
The Italian firm Internazionale Medico Scientifica (IMS) produces highly innovative mammography units under the brand name Giotto. More than 3,500 Giotto systems are now in use in 38 countries, mostly in Europe, America, China and the Far East. Reason enough for European Hospital to visit IMS in Pontecchio Marconi, Bologna.
Innovative technologies such as elastography, shearwave and 3-D have been cause for euphoria in today’s ultrasound world. The most recent development in breast imaging also has the potential to revolutionise this field, because the Automated Volume Breast Scanner (ABVS) is allowing user-independent and reproducible image acquisition for the first time.
