August 5, 2011 – Women with high exposure to magnetic fields during pregnancy may have a higher risk of asthma in their children, according to a Kaiser Permanente study appearing online in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

August 5, 2011 – Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago will install Merge Healthcare’s iConnect software suite (vendor-neutral archive [VNA], access and share) at its 270-bed facility.

August 4, 2011 – IBA announced at the recent American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, that it has enabled Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Mass., to open its hospital’s radiation therapy vault quickly and efficiently and therefore treat a greater number of cancer patients. IBA provided radiation therapy commissioning services with its Blue Phantom solution and advanced linear diode array (LDA-99) technology.

August 4, 2011—The first multi-institutional study evaluating a new form of radiation treatment for prostate cancer coupled with sophisticated real-time tumor tracking is now underway at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Mich. Principal investigator Daniel A. Hamstra, Ph.D., M.D., assistant professor, department of radiation oncology, along with 10 co-investigators, are evaluating the safety of shortened (hypofractionated) stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) with Calypso Medical’s GPS for the Body technology, used for real-time tracking of cancerous tumors during prostate radiotherapy, and comparing it to conventional radiation treatment.

August 3, 2011 - The latest release of McKesson's radiology information system (RIS) and picture archiving and communication system (PACS) have both infrastructure updates and usability enhancements. These systems offer value for medical imaging workflow.

August 2, 2011 – Two new studies published in the August 2011 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) provide insight into the potential of positron emission tomography (PET) to differentiate between types of dementia and to identify pharmaceuticals to slow the progress of dementia. With proposed National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer's Association guidelines for detecting Alzheimer's-related brain changes expected in September, these articles give a preview of what may be to come.

August 2, 2011 – The first two contracts for advanced development of drugs to treat gastrointestinal (GI) tract injuries associated with acute radiation syndrome were awarded today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Aug. 2, 2011 — Accuray Inc. announced it will showcase the CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery system and the TomoTherapy radiation therapy treatment system at the 2011 Joint American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM)/Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP) meeting. The company will also host a joint symposium examining best practices for quality assurance (QA) in radiation oncology. The 2011 Joint AAPM/COMP meeting takes place July 31-Aug. 4, 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Aug. 1, 2011 – Siemens will publicly introduce three new additions to its radiation oncology product portfolio at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM)/Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP). The event will be held July 31-Aug. 3 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.