A new way to examine stress and inflammation in the heart will help Parkinson’s researchers test new therapies and explore an unappreciated way the disease puts people at risk of falls and hospitalization.

A four-protein biomarker blood test improves lung cancer risk assessment over existing guidelines that rely solely upon smoking history. The blood test captures risk for people who have ever smoked, not only for heavy smokers, an international research team reports in JAMA Oncology.

iSchemaView has signed Diagnostic Imaging Australia (DIA) to be the exclusive distributor for the RAPID cerebrovascular imaging analysis platform in Australia and New Zealand. Hospitals and clinics that treat ischemic stroke in these countries will now have access to RAPID’s automated computed tomography perfusion (CTP), magnetic resonance (MR), CT angiography (CTA) and ASPECTS solutions, with support from DIA’s customer service specialists in the region.

Randomized clinical trials are the gold standard of cancer research and can shed light on whether innovative, new therapies with great potential actually have clear benefits over usual care for patients. However, the seven randomized trials funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to test proton therapy are enrolling more slowly than expected. Commercial insurance medical policies that do not cover treatment with proton therapy can make it difficult for patients to participate in randomized clinical trials funded by the NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health, that are evaluating the therapy. That’s the message from an expert at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues at the NCI who are calling attention to what the authors say is a major barrier these trials face. The authors publish their commentary, and proposed solutions, this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Invision Diagnostics, a provider of mobile mammography services across North and South Carolina, announced that it is the first dedicated mobile mammography provider to adopt VolparaEnterprise software to help deliver high-quality, personalized breast cancer screening. Invision Diagnostics performs over 8,000 mammograms annually in three advanced mobile mammography coaches in Asheville, Charlotte, Raleigh, and other locations throughout the Southeast.

Canadian nuclear power company Bruce Power and German-based Isotope Technologies Garching (ITG) signed an agreement to explore the production of the medical radioisotope no-carrier-added (n.c.a.) Lutetium-177. Lutetium-177 is used in targeted radionuclide therapy to treat cancers like neuroendocrine tumors and prostate cancer. It destroys cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected.

Guerbet announced it has signed an exclusive joint development agreement with IBM Watson Health to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) software solution to support liver cancer diagnostics. The AI software will focus on utilizing computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and care.