Dear AuntMinnie Member,
The teleradiology industry took center stage today with the announcement that Virtual Radiologic (vRad) is being acquired by Mednax, a national medical group.
Mednax has agreed to pay $500 million for vRad, which, though it's the largest teleradiology firm in the U.S., has been beset by fierce price competition for teleradiology reads. vRad has also drawn the ire of many traditional radiology practices that believe the company has moved from being a friend of radiology -- relieving radiologists of the burden of overnight reads -- to a foe, competing directly for daytime studies.
Learn more about the acquisition by clicking here, or visit our Imaging Informatics Community at informatics.auntminnie.com.
We're pleased to bring you same-day coverage of this important story, but if you need your breaking news even faster, be sure to sign up for our Twitter feed, @AuntMinnie.
Breast MRI news
In other news, new research out of the University of Washington suggests that contrast enhancement of normal tissue on breast MRI scans could be a harbinger of future cancer.
Researchers found that women with high levels of background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) also had higher cancer rates. In contrast, women who were free of cancer were more likely to have minimal BPE levels. Get all the details by clicking here.
Slashing inpatient PET/CT
Meanwhile, visit our Molecular Imaging Community for a study by a group from Rutgers University. The researchers were able to cut the number of inpatient PET/CT scans being performed by using nuclear medicine physicians as gatekeepers for exam orders from referring physicians.
The group shifted many PET/CT exams to the outpatient setting, while other studies were canceled or changed to a different imaging modality. Read more by clicking here.
While you're in the community, also check out this article on researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, who found that SPECT could help differentiate between patients with post-traumatic stress disorder and those with traumatic brain injury.
