Editorial
Who Should Perform Cardiac Imaging?
Dear readers, The controversy regarding who should undertake and report imaging investigations has been with us for many years and is ongoing. The increased complexity of imaging equipment, the wide range of imaging investigations and the depth of knowledge required to provide a comprehensive investigation service has strengthened the role of the radiologists and the economics of imaging has made the con...
European News
Commission Addresses Key Issues In Nuclear Medicine, Radiology and Radiotherapy
The European Commission has adopted a Communication to the European Parliament and to the Council on the medical applications of ionising radiation. It proposes a way forward to resolve the urgent issue of shortage of supply of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine. The Communication also identifies key issues to improve radiation protection of patients and medical staff, to avoid a rise in population exposur...
New Industry Partnership to Secure Manufacture of Radioisotopes
CEA (The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), IRE (National Institute for Radioelements, Belgium) and IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A., Belgium), three major industrials in the sector of manufacturing radioisotopes for medical examinations in Europe, have signed an agreement to secure the supply of Technetium (Tc-99m) beyond 2015. This agreement enables the companies to respond to Euro...
Association News
Last Call for Registration for Management in Radiology!
As previously announced in this journal, Europe's most important management-focused congress for chairmen, senior managers and administrators, radiographic technologists, medical equipment industry personnel and those interested in better managing their role in diagnostic imaging facilities and departments, are welcome to attend the Management in Radiology (MIR) Annual Scientific Meeting, which takes place...
CARS Congress 2011: Information Now Online
The annual CARS congress facilitates innovation and contributes to modern medicine on a worldwide basis. CARS' traditional focus on research and development for computer assisted systems and their applications in radiology and surgery has been a key player in the development of medical informatics for more than 25 years. Its close collaboration with the ISCAS, EuroPACS, CAR, CAD and CMI societies will cont...
CIRSE Raises UFE Awareness in Nine Languages
CIRSE has developed a website (www.uterinefibroids. eu) that provides vital information to patients, professionals and the public on the symptoms and possible treatment options of uterine fibroid embolisation (UFE) as part of its commitment to raising public awareness of new health solutions that are both highly effective and less invasive than many existing therapies. Fibroids of the uterus, also known a...
ECRI Institute 17th Annual Web Conference
Drs. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Carolyn Clancy, Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and more than 35 speakers from public and private sectors, are convening October 19 - 20, 2010, for ECRI Institute's 17th Annual Conference, Comparative Effectiveness and Personalised Medicine: An Essential Interface. The conference is being held on the campus of...
IHE Tests Data Exchange Systems
At the recent Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) European Connectathon 2010 in Bordeaux, seven companies tested systems for exchanging data between hospital device gateways using a protocol that covers data intended for use both in home and hospital-based devices. Sharing this data improves capabilities for remote patient monitoring among an increasingly aging population, which has become a prio...
Corporate News
Sectra Reports Double Number of Mammography Systems Delivered
For its first-quarter operations this year, Sectra has reported increased demand for the company's mammography products. The number of Sectra MicroDose Mammography system deliveries more than doubled to 21 and contributed to the quarter's sales growth. "During the quarter, we experienced major successes in Australia with our MicroDose system and our IT system for the processing of breast images. The late...
Siemens Makes its Factories Greener
Siemens is investing up to 100 million euros until the end of 2012 to make its factories greener. The company is currently analysing the environmental performance and energy efficiency of its some 300 most important sites worldwide. The goal is to reduce energy and CO2 emissions by 20 percent by the end of 2011. Siemens is also offering the green test to its suppliers. In the next two years they are to che...
GE Healthcare Opens First Plant in Brazil
CEO Jeff Immelt recently announced that the location of the next Global Research Centre (GRC) will be in Brazil, one of four focus countries in GE's globalisation process, which also includes Russia, India and China. Brazil and South America are of critical importance to GE Healthcare's future. For the last several years GE Healthcare has envisioned and laid the groundwork to establish a manufacturing fac...
Philips Introduces Enhanced Cardiac Ultrasound
Philips has announced enhancements to the iE33 xMATRIX cardiac ultrasound system designed to provide a more complete imaging solution for adult echocardiograms. In addition to the ergonomic design of the new X5-1 transducer, which aims to improve comfort and efficiency for the clinician, the system has been developed to help advance patient care by enabling expanded cardiac-related diagnostic capabilities...
Cover Story
Who Should Perform Cardiac Imaging?
Imaging the heart is a crucial component of clinical cardiology that provides invaluable information on structure, function, physiology and sometimes prognosis. In well-funded health systems, it is difficult to envisage managing the majority of patients without some form of cardiac imaging to provide accurate information important to clinical decision making.Cardiac Imaging different From all Other Imaging...
Who Should Perform Cardiac Imaging?
Diagnostic imaging has come to play a central role in the management of cardiovascular diseases, and radiologists have been responsible for the development and validation of clinical applications in the field. The recent explosion of medical imaging procedures has once again focused attention on the general issue of self-referral in cardiology. Several studies have demonstrated that diagnostic imaging serv...
Cardiac Imaging
Cardiovascular diseases are ranked as the leading causes for mortality in most Western regions which has lead to development of preventive and curative measures. according to World Health organization (WHo) estimates, 16.7 million people around the globe die of cardiovascular diseases each year. This is over 29 percent of all deaths globally. Recent studies suggest that the largest percentage increase woul...
Non-Invasive Cardiac Imaging Modalities
Dturing recent years, efforts from both the medical and engineering communities have led to enormous advances in the field of noninvasive cardiovascular imaging, strengthening its key role in cardiologic diagnosis making and therapy guidance. The strengths and weaknesses of the new developments in the four main cardiac non-invasive imaging modalities: nuclear imaging, multi-slice cardiac computed tomograph...
Towards Improving Cardiac Analysis Capabilities
Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of deaths in Europe. It is also the primary cause of disease burden on the healthcare sector. To reduce the mortality rate, it is vital to diagnose cardiac diseases early and follow up their treatment. Two-dimensional (2D) echocardiography is the frontline imaging modality for noninvasive cardiac functional analysis. However, 2D echocardiography suffers f...
Patient Safety
Patient Safety & MRI Contrast Agents
NSF Signs & Symptoms In some patients that go on to develop nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, localised non-progressive skin thickening and induration may be the only manifestation, though this can be particularly problematic if this interferes with dialysis shunt access. In more severe cases skin thickening adjacent to joints can lead to contractures and hence impaired mobility while in the most severe ca...
Interview
An Overview of the Czech Society of Radiology
History of the Czech Radiological Society The Czech Radiological Society of the "J. E. Purkyne" Czech Medical Association was founded on July 28, 1924 in Prague under the name of the Czechoslovak Society for Röntgenology and Radiology. At the initiation of Pilsen radiologist Dr. Antonin Čipera, and founder Dr. Rudolf Jedlicka, the first Czechoslovak radiological congress was organised in 1926 to mark the...
Interview: Radiology in the Czech Republic
Please tell us how you came to work in medical imaging. I come from a family of physicians. My father was a neurologist, my mother was a paediatrician and adolescent physician, my uncle was an ORL specialist, my aunt was a paediatrician and another aunt of mine was a gynaecologist. It was rather a given fact, then, that my future studies would be at the faculty of medicine. Along with the faculty of medicin...
Hot Topics in Medical Imaging in the Czech Republic
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) offers such benefits as the lack of need for ionising radiation, the possibility of real-time imaging, of the application of a second contrast media injection a few minutes after the first one, the possibility for quantification and the higher sensitivity and specificity offered by this technique in the detection and characterisation of small lesions under 1.5 cm. As CEU...
Preparing for a Career in Medical Imaging
In the Czech Republic today, preparation for a career in radiology begins at a radiology department and lasts for four years. The first two years comprise the so-called foundation, of which the first year is common for all fields. The second year is then directed towards individual methods – six months of radiography, two months of radioscopy and four months of ultrasound. The remaining three years are i...