May 21, 2012 — The Kimmel Cancer Center and the Department of Radiology at Thomas Jefferson University in Pennsylvania has received a five-year, $2.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will support investigations of a potentially revolutionary method that can stage prostate cancers and detect recurrent disease more accurately, significantly reducing the number of confirmation biopsies.

May 21, 2012 — The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has submitted comments to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs.

May 18, 2012 — In April the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Avid Radiopharmaceuticals’ (now part of Eli Lilly) Amyvid, a brain plaque diagnostic tool using florbetapir (F-AV-45). This radiotracer agent is delivered intravenously and is drawn to beta-amyloid plaque, a characteristic of AD.

May 18, 2012 — DICOM Grid, provider of a cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for medical imaging applications, this week announced the close of a $5 million financing expansion round led by Canaan Partners, CHL Medical Partners and existing individual investors.

May 16, 2012 — Philips Healthcare has established a five-year agreement with St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix to pursue research to help accelerate the advancement of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.

May 16, 2012 — David Fisher, vice president for healthcare policy and strategy at Siemens Healthcare, testified on behalf of the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) today at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Hearing on Proposed Medical Device Excise Tax Regulations [REG-113770-10] to voice the industry’s concerns about implementation of the tax imposed by the Affordable Care Act. MITA has submitted comments to the IRS on the proposed regulations, slated to go into effect in 2013, requesting clarification surrounding how and when the new tax will be put into practice.

May 15, 2012 -- European cancer experts have reported their progress with promising new radiosurgical techniques for treating cancer and other conditions using new linear accelerator technology from Varian Medical Systems. Speakers at Varian's Emerging Technologies Symposium at the annual ESTRO conference detailed their experiences with fast hypo-fractionated treatments for prostate patients and RapidArc Radiosurgery for intracranial and central nervous system indications.

May 15, 2012 – International medical technology company, Sectra, announced an agreement to distribute MagView mammography reporting, mammography tracking and compliance software fully integrated with Sectra Breast Imaging PACS.