Dear CT Insider,
Malpractice suits in radiology are often born of some pretty serious screwups, but they needn't be the end of the world. Only a modest percentage of claims result in payouts, says a radiologist specializing in abdominal CT.
But plaintiffs' attorneys set traps that radiologists should take care to avoid. Don't miss the rest of the story in this issue's Insider Exclusive article.
Meanwhile, a raft of small studies has found that coronary CT angiography is the cheapest way to go for imaging chest pain patients who are at low risk of coronary artery disease. But a comprehensive new cost and outcomes model suggests -- albeit somewhat counterintuitively -- that physicians might want to try something else first. Find out why a New York City group is taking a new, slightly puzzled look at an old test by clicking here.
Meanwhile, another tried-and-true test fell short among low-risk subjects in a study of army personnel, according to a report in the American Journal of Cardiology. Get the scoop on coronary artery calcium scoring in unselected military recruits by clicking here.
At the American Thoracic Society meeting in New Orleans, researchers showed how 320-detector-row CT identifies vocal cord dysfunction in asthmatic patients. Cardiac CT is great for identifying unsuspected lung cancers, according to another study.
Putting trust in CT over clinical presentation is a key message in two new appendicitis studies. First, in Radiology, a review of more than 2,000 patients with suspected acute appendicitis found that the few positive CT patients who were sent home without surgery ended up coming back. Meanwhile, a large retrospective study from Wisconsin found that CT delivered extremely high accuracy regardless of imaging protocol.
Investigators from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio did a fine job of proving the benefits of low-KV cardiac imaging in a recent presentation. They, too, offered pitfalls to watch out for.
Finally, the notorious Mad River case -- in which a toddler received a massive dose of radiation during what should have been a simple scan -- was settled. You can find the story here, and scroll down for much more, in your CT Digital Community.
