Dear AuntMinnie Member,
The conventional wisdom is that things begin to slow down in radiology as summer approaches, but that's certainly not the case this week. With this edition of our "Letter from the Editor," we bring you news from two of the specialty's most important trade shows, along with breaking clinical news.
First up is a study published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics on the long-term effects of radiation in children getting CT scans. Researchers examined CT studies performed over 15 years at several managed care organizations, and they found that from 4 million head, abdomen, chest, and spine scans performed each year in the U.S., almost 5,000 cancers can be projected to occur.
Perhaps most disturbing are some of the radiation doses used in the scans, which varied considerably and reached a high of nearly 70 mSv in one case. The good news: A very modest reduction in radiation dose (to the highest quartile of scans) could eliminate nearly half of the cancer cases.
Click here or visit our CT Digital Community at ct.auntminnie.com to learn more about the study and to find out how radiology is responding.
SNMMI Image of the Year
In other news, the nuclear medicine and molecular imaging community is convening in Canada this week for its annual conference, the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) meeting.
Features editor Wayne Forrest is in Vancouver, delivering daily updates for our Molecular Imaging Digital Community, including the selection of this year's Image of the Year winner on Monday.
The winning image, an FDG-PET/CT scan, illustrates a breast cancer patient responding to treatment with radium-223 dichloride for bone metastasis. See what it looks like by clicking here.
You'll also find an article on the safety profile of radiopharmaceutical and nonradioactive interventional drugs. An analysis of more than 1 million administrations found only 15 adverse events that were most likely attributable to the drugs, resulting in an adverse event rate of 1.5 incidents per 100,000 doses.
Get more details by clicking here, and stop by the Molecular Imaging Digital Community at molecular.auntminnie.com for more coverage of this week's meeting.
More news from SIIM
Finally, the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) annual meeting has just wound down in Grapevine, TX, where senior editor Erik L. Ridley has been filing reports for AuntMinnie.com.
Learn how radiologists are using computerized physician order-entry software to send details on scanner protocols to radiologic technologists. They're finding the software to be a big improvement over handwritten notes. Learn more by clicking here.
Also find out how researchers from the University of Maryland developed a new workflow system for importing images off external CD/DVDs. The new system replaced paper-driven workflow and led to a significant increase in trauma exams being loaded into the facility's PACS. Find out how it works by clicking here.
