Dear AuntMinnieEurope Member,
The world of medical imaging has lost one of its great champions and ambassadors. Dr. Harald Østensen worked tirelessly and unselfishly to promote training and the wider availability of medical equipment in poorer nations, achieving a great deal in Africa, Southeast Asia, India, and the South Pacific during his time with the World Health Organization and the Nycomed Amersham Intercontinental Continuing Education in Radiology (NICER) Institute.
His philosophy was refreshingly simple: Teach and educate people well on their home territory, and make appropriate use of existing technology rather than expensive high-tech equipment. This approach drew the support and admiration of colleagues across the globe. Click here to read more.
Women have made giant strides in medicine in recent years, leading to discussion of the "feminization" of the profession. Their status and position within radiology comes under close scrutiny in this month's Maverinck column. Find out more here.
Also, learn about the possible impact that a radiologist's experience might have on their false-positive rates when interpreting mammograms in an article in our Women's Imaging Digital Community.
Effective treatment of Alzheimer's disease depends on earlier and more accurate diagnosis, and a European Union-funded research project is making important progress in this area. The group is exploring how MR imaging can be used to measure atrophy in the mediotemporal lobe, among other things. To view some impressive images and read the full story, click here, or visit our MRI Digital Community.
Development of dual-energy CT in virtual colonoscopy is still in the early stages, but the initial results are highly promising, and the technique looks primed for greater acceptance due to its ability to predict tumor histology based on contrast uptake. New data were presented by German researchers at last week's International Society for Computed Tomography (ISCT) annual meeting, and you can learn more by clicking here for an article in our CT Digital Community.
Finally, the Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (CARS) congress started yesterday, and we're pleased to feature a report on the proceedings in our Advanced Visualization Digital Community from staff writer Eric Barnes, who is on hand in Berlin.
His first story is a fascinating report on a talk by Max Planck Institute researcher Dr. Hans Lerach on how personalized medicine is finally moving beyond the theoretical phase and into actual medical care. Click here to learn more, and check back on the site for more reports from this week's congress.
