Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Just what happened in the CT room at a Northern California hospital, when a 2-year-old boy received 151 scans -- and a massive overdose of radiation?
Accounts of the imaging session have come from everyone except perhaps the most important person: Raven Knickerbocker, the radiologic technologist (RT) who operated the scanner. But in newly available court transcripts, Knickerbocker describes how she struggled to complete the exam with a balky CT scanner -- and her surprise at learning of the overexposure.
The incident has national implications as Congress, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and state regulators examine ways to make medical imaging safer and less prone to accidents like what happened at Mad River. Read staff writer Donna Domino's account of Knickerbocker's testimony by clicking here.
PET helps predict Alzheimer's
In other news, new research released this week points to the utility of FDG-PET in predicting which individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) will go on to develop Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley compared a range of factors that might predict which MCI patients convert to Alzheimer's. Along with memory tests, FDG-PET produced the highest association with conversion, due to the lower glucose metabolism levels that occur when Alzheimer's disrupts neural networks in the brain.
Learn more by clicking here, or visit our Molecular Imaging Digital Community at molecular.auntminnie.com.
