Editorial
A Primer on Radiation Safety
Dear reader, In a recent issue, this journal addressed the reasons why radiologists could benefit from improved patient-radiologist communication, one of the main forces behind this being the drive to ensure greater patient information about the risks of medical imaging exams. As a follow-up to this, the cover story in this edition addresses the whys and hows of ensuring patient and also personnel safety...
EU News
MEDRAPET Project to Provide Radiation Protection Education
MEDRAPET (Medical Radiation Protection Education & Training) is the name of a new project that aims to provide radiation protection education in Europe under tender ENER/10/ NUCL/SI2581148. The consortium partners are:ESR (European Society of Radiology)EFoMP (European Federation of organisations for Medical Physicists)EFRS (European Federation of Radiographer Societies)ESTRo (European European Society...
Commission to Extend Euratom Budget for Nuclear Research to 2013
The Commission has adopted a proposal to extend the budget of the 2007 - 2011 Euratom Framework Programme, which funds nuclear research, to cover the years 2012 and 2013. This is a formal step necessary to bring the effective duration of the Euratom Framework Programme into line with the seven-year period of the main Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), which ends in 2013. The proposal does not...
Association News
Management In Radiology
Management in Radiology (MIR), a subcommittee of the European Society of Radiology, has released details concerning the development of the scientific programme for their 2011 edition of the annual conference which takes place Thursday, September 29 to Friday, September 30 in Nice, France. The congress provides essential healthcare management coverage not only to radiologists, but also to physicians and o...
CARS 2011
The CARS congress with its associated journal has issued an open invitation to potential attendees of the annual congress to take place in Berlin from June 22 – 25. With a focus on research and development for computer-assisted systems and their applications in radiology and surgery, CARS has played a leading role in medical informatics for more than 25 years. It has a close collaboration with the ISCAS,...
CIRSE
CIRSE are urging stakeholders to present their latest research findings at the leading European meeting for interventional radiology, with a deadline of May 14, 2011. With more than 5,600 participants in 2010, the CIRSE annual meeting has become Europe's largest and most comprehensive forum for experts in imageguided minimally invasive therapies. CIRSE believes that this offers the best possible platform t...
Connectathon Fast Approaching
With 450 million people covered by healthcare systems in 27 countries, Europe presents unique challenges for Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). IHE-Europe creates a common ground and a shared goal of achieving a seamless flow of patient information. The deadline for registering for the IHE Connectathon to take place in Pisa, Italy, is fast approaching. The IHE Connectathon is a landmark event f...
Cover Story: A Primer on Radiation Protection: Patient & Personnel Safety in Focus
Communication, Consent and Patient Safety
In theory, good medical practice implies knowledge of the doses and long-term risks of radiological and nuclear medicine testing, since awareness of risk is essential for tailoring the risk-benefit balance in ascertaining test appropriateness. In practice, extensive recent data show substantial unawareness of radiological doses and risks - not only on the part of patients, but of prescribing and practising...
Radiation Safety and the International Radiologist
Developments in the applications for minimally invasive interventional procedures carry a parallel increase in the use of fluoroscopy and CT, both of which are associated with potentially excessive radiation exposure to patients and personnel. Interventional radiologists (IRs) use image guidance in each and every intervention. Most of the image guidance systems are based on ionising radiation, mainly fluor...
X-Ray Beam Optimisation for Paediatric Interventional Cardiac Imaging
In the cardiac catheterisation lab, image sequences of the heart are captured by a dynamic x-ray imaging system to allow real time visualisation of catheter movement within the vessels. An iodine-based contrast medium is often utilised to allow clear visualisation of blood flow through the arteries, ventricles, and valves of the heart. Cardiac image sequences must be captured with high spatial and temporal...
Does Reduction in Computed Tomography (CT)
Professionals in the radiology department have to ensure that every examination is justified, optimised and tailored to the clinical question. Radiation dose optimisation is very important in CT examinations and factors affecting patients' radiation doses have been reviewed (please see "learning resources"). Various technical approaches have been introduced to reduce radiation dose and improve dose utilisa...
Family Doctors as Gatekeepers to Medical Imaging
In recent years, Canadian governments have invested significantly to improve access to MRI and CT scans. As a result, both the number of scanners and number of exams performed in Canada have increased exponentially. The Health Council of Canada's recent report Decisions, Decisions: Family Doctors as Gatekeepers to Prescription Drugs and Diagnostic Imaging in Canada found that between 1990 and 2009, CT scan...
Tech Horizons
Image Guided Surgery
Introduction Recent advances in image guided surgery (IGS) are changing the manner in which surgeons are able to execute difficult procedures, most specifically the minimal invasive ones. By building detailed, patient-specific models of anatomy, and augmenting those models with other pertinent information, such as functional properties, the surgeon can better plan the procedure to optimally extract target a...
Special Focus: Management & Leadership Skills
Dialectics and Leadership
A cornerstone of leadership is the mastery of techniques for convincing people to pursue your vision. Sometimes, provided you imbue those who report to you with a sense of urgency and shared passion, your ministrations will be enthusiastically supported. But most of the time such unanimity of purpose is lacking. Some of those you direct will actively dispute you, while others will be passively aggressive....
The Importance of Leadership
Leaders are those who do the right thing and managers are those who do things right, according to Warren Bennis, widely known as the progenitor of modern leadership concepts. Do we live and act like we know the difference between a leader and a manager? In everyday activities when urgent matters and routines dominate the agenda, most of us try to do things right, typically without reflecting much, not leas...
Interventional Radiology
Clinical Care the Key to Interventional Radiology's Furture
Interventional radiology has evolved into an indispensible branch of modern medicine, offering a growing number of minimally invasive procedures in a broad range of therapeutic areas. This reach has been the discipline's strength as well as its Achilles heel; with no specific disease state, organ system, or patient group to exclusively call its own, IR often struggles for recognition while other specialtie...
Financial Management
Benefits of PET-CT Versus Other Diagnostic Methods
PET/CT is an established clinical tool that is particularly valuable for cancer-related diagnosis, including both initial diagnosis and follow-up examinations. There are other procedures, like CT/MRT, bone scan, or mediastinoscopy, all of which are also costly. Given the fact that PET/CT is widely used anyway, the question arises whether it is medically responsible and financially favourable to focus solel...
Country Focus: Cyprus
Radiology in Cyprus
Career Highlights - Prof. Alexander J. Kanakas Each member of my family has been involved in the practice of medicine: Late father as a cardiologist and my mother as a microbiologist while my brother is a gynaecologist and sister a paediatric endocrinologist. After being accepted at the Athens Medical School I served in the army for two years then took up my studies. In 1978, I graduated medical school, g...
Hot Topics in Medical Imaging in Cyprus
What Kind of Background Does Cyprus Have in Tele-Health? Telemedicine is evolving in Cyprus, with some forms of telemedicine in common practice in many fields of medicine throughout the country. Our aim is to incorporate telemedicine in everyday practice in Cyprus, especially as the whole island is covered with state of art telecommunications. Health technology projects already implemented in Cyprus include...
Exhibitors @ RSNA 2010
Hitachi
As the latest addition to the HI VISIoN series of ultrasound systems the HI VISIoN Ascendus benefits from modalities such as Hitachi Realtime Tissue Elastography (HI-RTE) for imaging tissue stiffness, and dynamic Contrast Harmonic Imaging (dCHI) technology, that enhances visualisation of tissue microvasculature after the injection of an ultrasound contrast agent. Features that are part of the standard pack...
Philips
Philips announced the opening of the world's first Hybrid oR with FlexMove – a ceilingmounted option for the Allura xper x-ray system, designed to optimise workflow in Hybrid ors – at the University Hospital Zurich (Universitäts Spital Zürich, USZ), Switzerland. A Hybrid oR is the integration of a surgical operating room with an advanced x-ray imaging system. This enables cardiovascular surgeons as w...
Carestream
Winthrop-University Hospital, Mineola, N.y., signed a seven-year, multi-million-dollar order for cloud-based RIS/PACS and vendor-neutral archiving services from Carestream Health. Carestream's e-health services deliver full RIS/PACS functionality for image review, storage and distribution throughout the enterprise including delivering advanced reading tools to on-site or remote radiologists. Cloud-based ar...
Hologic
Hologic announced its Selenia Dimensions digital mammography system in two dimensional (2D) mode has been awarded "EUREF Type Test" certification by the European Reference organisation (EUREF) Council for Quality Assured Breast Screening and Diagnostic Services. only three products have received EUREF approval to date, of which two are Hologic systems - namely, our Selenia digital mammography system and no...
AGFA
Agfa HealthCare announces today that the hospitals of the François-Elisabeth Foundation (FFE) in Luxembourg will replace their existing hospital information system (HIS) and document management system (DMS) with Agfa HealthCare systems. The Hôpital Kirchberg, the Clinique Privée Dr. E. Bohler - both in the Kirchberg area of Luxembourg City - and the Clinique Sainte-Marie in Esch-sur-Alzette will put Agf...
SIEMENS
Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has installed two MAMMoMAT Inspiration ™ Full Field Digital mammography systems with Stereotactic Biopsy from Siemens Healthcare. The systems will help expand digital imaging capabilities and improve services in line with the Cancer Reform Strategy (CRS). The Inspirations will be used for symptomatic breast examinations and will streamline workflow by off...
Agenda
Upcoming Seminars in Medical Imaging From Across the Globe
May 3 – 8 43rd International Diagnostic Course DavosDavos, Switzerlandwww.idkd.org 27 – 30 GEST 2011 Europe – Global Embolization Symposium & TechnologiesParis, Francewww.gest2011.eu 28 – 5 74th Annual Scientific Meeting: Canadian Association of Radiologists...