Dear AuntMinnie Insider,
The radiology-gastroenterology partnership built to screen for colon cancer at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) in Bethesda, MD, is one of the oldest and strongest in the U.S. Forged during the multicenter trial by Perry Pickhardt, MD, and colleagues that put virtual colonoscopy on the map with its publication in 2004, the NNMC's Colon Health Initiative lets gastroenterologists choose the screening method and leaves radiologists in charge of VC.
Brooks Cash, MD, chief of medicine at NNMC and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, has found that VC works very well in the Medicare-aged population at the center -- and that screening compliance surges when VC and gastroenterology are both offered as options. Cash spoke at the recent International Symposium on Virtual Colonoscopy in Boston. Find out what he said in this issue's Insider Exclusive.
Also unveiled at the Boston symposium was an aggressive new strategy to get screening virtual colonoscopy covered. Learn about the latest efforts on the legislative, legal, and organizational fronts by clicking here.
Meanwhile, a new DNA test that can find adenomas as well as colorectal cancers with high sensitivity made waves at a news conference in Philadelphia. Finally, first results from the Special Interest Group in Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology (SIGGAR) trial in the U.K. are great news for virtual colonoscopy, not so great for barium enema.
If you can't find a story anywhere else, you probably read it in your Virtual Colonoscopy Digital Community.
