With information just a click away, the widespread use of the Internet has given rise to a more educated consumer. It is no surprise then, that this increase in consumer education has permeated the healthcare industry. No longer are patients arbitrarily accepting referrals from one physician to another. Rather, they are using all available information to decide what healthcare facility to visit or which healthcare professional to see. Patients are also using their experiences, through reviews, to help others make similar decisions.

The digitization of medical imaging at hospitals has come a long way since the early picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) of the 1990s, according to Eric Rice, chief technology officer for Mach7 Technologies. With more institutions investing in electronic medical records (EMR) and Meaningful Use criteria driving the push toward even better management and storage of patient images, the enterprise imaging strategy has evolved into a vital necessity for many healthcare organizations. This involves the handling of images not only across certain departments, but also across entire hospitals and healthcare networks. The value of developing an enterprise imaging strategy is inherent to any organization, said Rice, whether they are in the process of implementing their EMR platform or looking for ways to optimize it.

The trend in breast cancer treatment these days is all about precision, with the twin goals of controlling the cancer better and reducing side effects. Great advances have been made in radiation delivery methods that make it possible to more precisely target the tumor bed, plus a small margin around it where the cancer would be most likely to recur. By tightly focusing on these areas alone, radiation oncologists can minimize exposure to critical healthy tissue and structures such as the heart and lungs. Less damage to healthy tissue also means better cosmetic outcomes.

Patient radiation dose safety has become the latest buzzword. With the emerging regulations and mandates, technologies and best practices, the radiation safety information pool has become convoluted with disparate and conflicting information. With numerous opinions and interpretations on radiation safety trends, best practices, regulation updates and studies, healthcare providers as well as the general public are experiencing difficulties filtering the true message in managing patient radiation dose away from the industry noise. Healthcare providers are constantly reviewing and assessing regulations, best imaging processes and the emerging technologies — including automated dose management systems and dose management computed tomography (CT) devices — promising to decrease or eliminate the chance of another sentinel event.

October 3, 2014 — The recent approval of GE Healthcare’s SenoClaire by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will end Hologic’s monopoly of the U.S. digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) market, offering greater choice for hospitals and patients, according to an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData.

Over the past few years, iterative reconstruction has emerged as an alternative to filtered back projection with its ability to improve the image quality of computed tomography (CT) images. Although the clinical use of iterative reconstruction techniques in CT is rather new, U. Joseph Schoepf, M.D., professor of radiology, medicine and pediatrics, and director of the division of cardiovascular imaging at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, said the technology itself has been around almost as long as CT imaging. “When the first CT scanner was conceived by Sir Godfrey Hounsfield — the inventor of CT — and the first system was actually put together by EMI, iterative reconstruction was the proposed reconstruction method for computed tomography,” he explained.

There is no doubt about it that breast cancer is making great strides, but until it has been eradicated, we still need to fight for its awareness. The American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates that about 232,670 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in women in 2014, and more than 62,000 new cases of carcinoma in situ (CIS) will be diagnosed. About 40,000 women will die from this disease.

The U.S. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) market has been stable for the last few years. With an estimated value of $1.25 billion, the market has been flat with very low, if any, growth. It is predominantly a replacement market, with the majority of hospitals and imaging facilities upgrading older systems to newer ones. From a field strength standpoint, 1.5T and 3.0T systems dominate the market — approximately 65 and 35 percent, respectively.