April 17, 2012 - On April 9, 2012, the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) launched its second version of the Innovation Pathway, called "Innovation Pathway 2.0." This program offers new and modified tools and methods to deepen collaboration between the FDA and innovators early in the process, prior to pre-market submission, with the goal of making the regulatory process more efficient and timely.

April 16, 2012 — Medic Vision Imaging Solutions Ltd. announced that within six months of clinical use in the United States, its SafeCT image enhancement system has delivered diagnostic image quality to more than 20,000 CT (computed tomography) studies acquired with low-dose protocols.

April 16, 2012 — Philips Healthcare announced it is collaborating with Brainlab AG to create a comprehensive intra-operative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) solution with the goal of streamlining neurosurgery procedures. Ingenia MR-OR is based on Philips’ digital broadband Ingenia MRI system, 1.5T and 3.0T, and is designed to be combined with Brainlab’s integrated operating room (OR) solutions.

April 13, 2012 — Leading experts in radiosurgery of the spine will present information about how to treat spinal tumors effectively using stereotactic radiosurgery rather than invasive surgical procedures during the annual meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) later this week in Miami.

April 13, 2012 — The spiraling cost of silver is making medical films more and more obsolete, as new and more efficient medical imaging information systems (MIIS) continue to emerge, according to a new report by pharmaceutical and medical intelligence analysts GBI Research.

April 13, 2012 — Researchers at The Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center have successfully used nanotechnology to target a protein that plays a key role in atherosclerosis and inflammation, and say the study is an important advance toward using immunotherapy to simultaneously diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease.

April 12, 2012 — U-Systems announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Radiological Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee recommended approval of the somo•v Automated Breast Ultrasound (ABUS) system.

Accustomed to paper-based workflow processes and legacy single-modality solutions, most cardiology departments lag several years behind radiology in their adoption of cardiovascular image and information management systems (CIIMS). After providers have met the requirements for the first stages of meaningful use through their electronic medical record (EMR) implementation, the CIIMS market will likely start to benefit from IT stimulus funding starting in 2014.

April 11, 2012 - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a proposed rule that would delay, from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014, the compliance date for the International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10).