For spotting the tiniest metastases inside the liver, MRI with the liver-specific gadolinium-based contrast agent Primovist (gadoxetic acid) was far and away the top choice of surgeons in an eight-country multicenter study. The surgeons were given a chance to use various imaging methods for colorectal center patients and judge their value. The same contrast agent is also proving adept at visualizing obstructions in biliary vasculature, compared to non-contrast-enhanced MRI.

Refinements in MRI technique continue to show promise in clarifying the nature and extent of damage of myocardial infarction. Take for example teams from Munich, Germany presenting this week at ECR 2011, who have been finding ways around the problem of adapting inversion time to the individual patient when using delayed enhancement to detect tissue damage.

Five years after the first reports linking gadolinium-based MRI contrast agents to nephrogenic system fibrosis (NSF), separate presentations of post-marketing data from manufacturers and an independent prospective study supported by agencies in France have validated the low-risk status of the contrast agent Dotarem (Gd-DOTA).

Ultrasound elastography is shown to raise sensitivity by 24 percent for preoperative assessment of axillary metastases in suspected breast cancer. Meanwhile, microbubbles identify sentinel lymph nodes, minimizing operations, according to researchers presenting at ECR 2011.

Organizers for this year's congress have worked to increase audience and speaker interaction and discussion.

In anticipation of the European Congress of Radiology 2011, which will be held March 3 to 7 in Vienna, Austria, Diagnostic Imaging caught up with Professor Yves Menu, chairman of the department of radiology at Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris and the ECR 2011 Congress President.

Through carefully calculated adjustments to coronary imaging using dose-reduction techniques, cardiologists have managed to reduce the radiation delivered to patients undergoing coronary angiograms considerably. Plus, it’s possible to maintain good image quality throughout, researchers found.

Radiologists should be clinically focused when handling HIV cases, according to a leading chest expert. They must know if patients are drug-naïve or whether they are already on antiretroviral therapy. It is also important to determine how they acquired their HIV, whether onset is acute or more gradual, and how profoundly unwell the patients feel.

Rheumatoid arthritis, which affects approximately 2.9 million people in Europe, can be difficult to differentiate from other forms of arthritis. Without an early diagnosis, however, it is impossible to assess the true effect of promising early intervention strategies. Could an alternative diagnostic imaging strategy be the answer?

Crystal-ball gazing reached new levels at ECR on Saturday, when Prof. Dieter Enzmann took delegates on “a trip to radiology Tomorrowland,” as he referred to his W.C. Röntgen honorary lecture.

It wasn’t too long ago that ultrasound was a roiling sea of innovation and new product releases, spurred by a rivalry among Diasonics, ATL, Hewlett-Packard (Agilent Technologies), and Acuson. Since these companies’ acquisition by GE, Philips, and Siemens, the waters have calmed. Supersonic Imagine plans to begin making some waves -- and soon.

If radiologists could design the perfect modality for guiding interventional procedures, the resulting technology would undoubtedly produce high-quality images without exposing patients to any ionizing radiation. So given the widespread availability of MRI, why are so many interventions still performed in the angiography suite?

As part of the European School of Radiology (ESOR) Visiting Scholarships Programme, I had the opportunity to obtain further training in musculoskeletal radiology in Dublin from September until December 2008.

Philips and Toshiba hope to open up a new end of the market for hand-carried ultrasound – the high end.

MR systems used in cardiovascular imaging will inevitably have higher field strengths, including 7T, according to a leading cardiac radiologist.

CT and MRI have a vital part to play in cases of head and neck trauma, but it is important to know which modality to use under the clinical circumstances, according to speakers at Friday’s opening session of the minicourse on major trauma.

A protocol involving contrast-enhanced ultrasound could better target tumors and reduce the number of unnecessary prostate biopsies, according to a pair of studies presented Sunday. One of the studies involved more than 2000 patients.

Philips Healthcare says it has come up with a way to make imaging departments more productive, at least ones that use its MR and CT scanners.

Computer aided detection remains the core focus of iCAD, but the company, once known only for its mammography products, has a much broader portfolio these days.

Focusing on company technologies aimed at early stage diagnosis, GE Healthcare is advocating disease prevention and presymptomatic detection at the ECR this week. In the context of this “Early Health” model of care, GE addressed an issue Europeans were the first to be concerned about: patient radiation dose.