Dear AuntMinnie Member,
A new study is adding to mounting concerns over the potential health effects of gadolinium deposition in the body after the use of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) for MRI scans.
Up to now, most of the concerns over gadolinium residue have been related to a class of GBCAs known as linear agents, which are believed to be less stable than so-called macrocyclic GBCA products. It's been thought that gadolinium is more likely to break free from linear agents and end up as residue in body tissue than with macrocyclic agents.
But in the new study, University of Washington researchers have also found gadolinium deposits in patients who received macrocyclic agents, with concentrations in both bone and brain tissue.
Experts are still trying to figure out what the findings mean in the debate over the safety of gadolinium contrast. The University of Washington researchers pointed out that the amounts of gadolinium in question are extremely small, and so far there's been no study connecting residual deposition to any health effects (a situation that differs from the established link between gadolinium and nephrogenic systemic fibrosis in patients with impaired renal function).
Read more by clicking here, or visit our MRI Community at mri.auntminnie.com.
PET/CT for head & neck cancer
In other news, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that PET/CT could be a better tool for following up patients who have received treatment for head and neck cancer.
Researchers from the U.K. used PET/CT to perform follow-up scans rather than automatically sending patients on to neck dissection surgery, which can be expensive and lead to complications in patients. They found that patients who got scan surveillance had far fewer surgical procedures and lower cost of follow-up, with clinical outcomes that were about the same.
Read more by clicking here, or visit our Molecular Imaging Community at molecular.auntminnie.com.
Image sharing challenges
Finally, our series on the challenges of enterprise imaging continues with a new article on image sharing. This week's story examines some of the options available for healthcare networks that want to share images across the enterprise, from vendor-neutral archives to specialized image sharing software. Learn more by clicking here, or visit our Imaging Informatics Community at informatics.auntminnie.com.
