IBM announced it has formed a Watson Health medical imaging collaborative, a global initiative comprised of more than fifteen leading health systems, academic medical centers, ambulatory radiology providers and imaging technology companies. The collaborative aims to bring cognitive imaging into daily practice to help doctors address breast, lung and other cancers; diabetes; eye health; brain disease; and heart disease and related conditions, such as stroke.

A new study in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences surveyed doctors, radiologists and imaging technologists regarding their beliefs about radiation exposure from computed tomography (CT). The survey found that while most respondents recognized there is an increased risk of cancer from CT, many underestimated the actual radiation dose.

Developers of a new portable molecular imaging system debuted their creation at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), June 11-15 in San Diego. The new system combines optical imaging at the surface level and scintigraphy, which captures the physiological function of what lies beneath.

Cancer patients often experience significant fluctuations in weight and lean body mass (LBM). Neglecting to account for these changes can prevent clinicians from obtaining precise data from molecular imaging, but a new method of measuring LBM takes changes in individual body composition into account for better staging of disease and therapy monitoring, said researchers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), June 11-15 in San Diego.