Radiation therapy has played an important role in the treatment of cancer for more than a century. Used typically as a curative treatment either alone or in conjunction with surgery and/or chemotherapy, the aim of radiation therapy has always been to eradicate a patient’s cancer.

Whether it is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) or another type of imaging system, reliable power protection is critical for the proper operation and uptime of imaging applications. But what happens if a healthcare facility suffers a power brownout, surge or outage? How do these events affect imaging equipment?

With concerns about radiation dose and reducing unnecessary imaging scans, advances in computed tomography (CT) systems have brought about technologies such as iterative reconstruction software, intraoperative capabilities and dose-tracking software. In addition, recent studies on the use of CT on select patient populations and the modality’s benefits in detecting certain cancers are showing that the risks of CT imaging can go both ways. While CT exams can add to a patient’s lifetime exposure to ionizing radiation, they can also be more beneficial in cases where magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or ultrasound might not be able to detect early-stage cancers. Some of these trends in utilization indicate that appropriate low-dose CT imaging will be key across patient populations.

Wide bore magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems have allowed radiologists to offer patients the optimized comfort of conventional open bore systems, as well as the high-quality imaging of conventional closed bore systems. Because wide bore MRIs have broadened the demographic of patients who can be tested, the systems have gained widespread adoption in use, with many practices opting to equip their offices solely with wide bore systems.

Clinical trial results demonstrated that a noninvasive coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA)-based test accurately assesses coronary artery disease (CAD) with results closely matching those of invasively measured fractional flow reserve (FFR), and may inform potential revascularization treatment options, including angioplasty and coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG), better than current methods.