Studies presented in the first half of 2007 added power to the argument favoring coronary CT angiography to cut some of the $10 billion spent annually to diagnose patients who arrive in the emergency room with chest pain.
Studies presented in the first half of 2007 added power to the argument favoring coronary CT angiography to cut some of the $10 billion spent annually to diagnose patients who arrive in the emergency room with chest pain.
Dr. Gudrun Feuchtner and colleagues at Medical University Innsbruck in Austria found coronary CTA to be a cost-effective pretest to exclude stenosis > 50% in intermediate risk patients with clinically suspected coronary artery disease. Their analysis showed the use of CTA rather than catheter angiography in 22 patients saved more than $20,000.
Dr. James A. Goldstein at William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan conducted the first prospective randomized trial demonstrating coronary CTA's value in the acute chest pain setting (J Am Coll Cardiol 2007;49:863-871). He randomized 99 patients to CTA and 98 to standard of care.
Cardiac CT either excluded or identified coronary artery disease as the cause of acute chest pain in 75% of patients, including 67 with normal coronary arteries and eight with severe disease referred for invasive evaluation. The remaining 25% required additional testing because of intermediate severity lesions or nondiagnostic scans. Diagnostic time and costs using CT were reduced to a mean 3.4 hours and $1582 versus 15 hours and $1872 for standard of care.
Emerging AI Algorithm Shows Promise for Abbreviated Breast MRI in Multicenter Study
April 25th 2025An artificial intelligence algorithm for dynamic contrast-enhanced breast MRI offered a 93.9 percent AUC for breast cancer detection, and a 92.3 percent sensitivity in BI-RADS 3 cases, according to new research presented at the Society for Breast Imaging (SBI) conference.
The Reading Room Podcast: Current Perspectives on the Updated Appropriate Use Criteria for Brain PET
March 18th 2025In a new podcast, Satoshi Minoshima, M.D., Ph.D., and James Williams, Ph.D., share their insights on the recently updated appropriate use criteria for amyloid PET and tau PET in patients with mild cognitive impairment.
Can Abbreviated Breast MRI Have an Impact in Assessing Post-Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Response?
April 24th 2025New research presented at the Society for Breast Imaging (SBI) conference suggests that abbreviated MRI is comparable to full MRI in assessing pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer.
Clarius Mobile Health Unveils Anterior Knee Feature for Handheld Ultrasound
April 23rd 2025The T-Mode Anterior Knee feature reportedly offers a combination of automated segmentation and real-time conversion of grayscale ultrasound images into color-coded visuals that bolster understanding for novice ultrasound users.