Dear AuntMinnieEurope Member,
There seems to be no limit to the devious methods employed by drug mules. Some of them will swallow more than 100 packages, or even stuff them into their rectum. The packages typically contain heroin, LSD, and cocaine, and are wrapped in plastic or condoms. Detecting them in the gastrointestinal tract represents a serious challenge, even for experienced radiologists.
To combat this problem, researchers from Finland are developing a low-dose CT protocol that may eventually be used to screen suspected traffickers. Click here to read more.
A U.K. group headed by a physicist and radiation protection advisor has developed a computer model to produce realistic simulated computed radiography (CR) chest images using CT datasets of real patients. To optimize image quality and patient dose for clinical CR chest radiographs, the model can be used by image evaluators to grade images presented at different tube potentials and doses. Get the story here.
The German cardiac CT registry has been going for more than two years, and its 10 participating centers have enrolled more than 4,000 patients. Some new findings from the registry about CT angiography were released at the recent European Society of Cardiology (ESC) annual congress. Visit our Cardiac Imaging Digital Community, or click here.
Misdignoses with PET/CT are surprisingly common. Some malignancies that have a low affinity to FDG may be missed if the corresponding CT scan is not scrutinized carefully, and changes induced by radiation treatment and/or chemotherapy can lead to the misinterpretation of restaging PET/CT scans. Radiologists at Dublin's Mater Misericordiae University Hospital have experience in this field, and you can read about their views by clicking here.
Breast ultrasound is a fast-changing area. More standardization is required, but combining B-mode, Doppler techniques, and elastography can improve true-positive and true-negative diagnosis results. Click here for more details.
