CT cerebral angiography makes emergency department (ED) diagnosis of headache more effective, researchers have found. A team led by Dustin Mark, MD, of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, CA, reported that use of the technique was associated with “fewer lumbar punctures and higher detection of unruptured intracranial aneurysms, with no significant change in missed diagnoses of subarachnoid hemorrhage or bacterial meningitis.” The results were published April 19 in JAMA Network Open. The investigators conducted a study that included data from 198,109 encounters at 21 emergency departme ..read more

American Shared Hospital Services (ASHS) is mourning the sudden passing of its CEO, Peter Gaccione. Gaccione was named CEO in March 2023 after serving briefly as ASHS’s chief operating officer (COO). He brought 40 years of experience in the global radiation oncology and imaging business to the role, according to the firm. He also served at Elekta between 1997 to 2020; when he left there he was functioning as that firm’s president and CEO. “On behalf of my colleagues at AMS, we are deeply saddened by the unexpected passing of Peter Gaccione and we extend our sincere sympathies to his family,” A ..read more

GE HealthCare (GEHC) is collaborating with Elekta through its recent acquisition, MIM Software. Under the partnership, Elekta’s radiation therapy offerings will incorporate MIM Software’s medical imaging management tools, which will “enable advanced … oncology treatment planning in the delivery of radiation therapy,” the company said. GEHC acquired MIM Software earlier this month. It has sustained a partnership with Elekta since 2022 ..read more

A range of federal and state legislation and other developments in the works could have a significant impact on radiologic technologists and registered radiology assistants, either supporting and strengthening these professions or weakening them. For example, the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) is working with lawmakers to reintroduce the federal Medicare Access to Radiology Care Act (MARCA) in the current legislative session. Last introduced in June 2021 as HR-3657 and companion SB-2641, MARCA would amend Medicare reimbursement policy for radiologist as ..read more

A new cancer screening service model developed by Italian researchers can reduce direct non-medical costs and improve environmental sustainability for breast cancer screening and other screening exams. The investigators, led by doctoral candidate Vera Benedetto from the Health Science Interdisciplinary Center in Pisa, found that their model, which utilizes mobile cancer screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer, reduced costs by over 95,000 euros ($101,155 U.S.) in terms of travel costs and productivity losses. It also reduced as much as 35 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2)-equival ..read more

Evergreen Theragnostics has raised $26 million in capital through its existing shareholders and new backers Petrichor and LIFTT. With the funding, the Springfield, NJ-based company plans to advance commercialization of its Ga-68 DOTATOC diagnostic kit, and further its theranostic pair, EVG-321, into clinical trials. Evergreen also intends to expand its capabilities as a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Stefano Buono, chairman of LIFTT and founder and former CEO of Advanced Accelerator Applications, noted the funding is based on optimism around rapidly advancing radio ..read more

MR elastography (MRE) is an effective technique for noninvasive monitoring of liver stiffness -- a surrogate for fibrosis -- in children and young adults with autoimmune liver disease, researchers have reported. A team led by first author Jonathan Dillman, MD, of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Center in Ohio found that MRE liver stiffness measurements were elevated in children and young adults with autoimmune liver disease. The results were published April 18 in the American Journal of Roentgenology. “[As well, these measurements] were not significantly different between subsets of patients wi ..read more

Data management vendor Segmed plans to partner with nonprofit Beacon Health System in Indiana to supply Segmed's advanced medical imaging data. Beacon will have access to Segmed's database of imaging data from various modalities such as CT scans, MRIs, x-rays, and ultrasounds, according to Segmed. Segmed acquires, deidentifies, standardizes, and provides medical imaging data to use as part of AI machine learning. As of August 2023, Segmed's Insight cloud-based platform reportedly had surpassed 100 million imaging studies ..read more

ChatGPT-4 appears useful for extracting details from reports on thrombectomy procedures in stroke patients, a labor-intensive and error-prone task currently performed by human readers, according to a group in Germany. Such “data mining” by ChatGPT could provide an alternative to manual methods for building stroke registries, with the data being key to improving the quality of stroke care, noted lead author Nils Lehnen, MD, of University Hospital Bonn, and colleagues. “Procedural details of mechanical thrombectomy in patients with ischemic stroke are predictors of clinical outcome and are colle ..read more

Recurrence-free breast cancer survival is less likely in women with high breast density compared to women with low density, according to research published April 18 in The Breast. A team led by Kristina Lång, MD, PhD, from Lund University in Sweden found that these results were especially evident for women with screening-detected cancers. However, they found no association between mammographic tumor appearance and recurrence-free survival. This study may lead to insights on risk factors related to tumor biology, mammographic patterns at diagnosis, and breast cancer recurrence, which in tu ..read more