Dear AuntMinnieEurope Member,
Hygiene standards and infection-control procedures in ultrasound are not as good as they should be across Europe, and more training and education are urgently needed.
That's the obvious conclusion from an important new survey from the European Society of Radiology. The findings are quite shocking, and hopefully they will lead to strong, decisive initiatives and improvements in clinical practice. Click here to learn more.
Any new research coming from Berlin's prestigious Charité Hospital is always worth a close inspection, so Dr. Marc Dewey's study published last week in BMJ is bound to generate plenty of interest. What was the subject matter? Find out more in the Cardiac Imaging Community, or by clicking here.
Meanwhile, Italian investigators have tried to discover which asymptomatic individuals at risk of heart attack should be screened with coronary CT angiography (CCTA). They looked at C-reactive protein, interleukins, and the use of carotid ultrasound in an effort to maximize the likelihood that CCTA screening is used in the right patients. Their research revealed the surprising strength of those other risk factors. Get the details here.
In another significant cardiac study, an Austrian group analyzed the nearly universal use of degree of stenosis to define coronary artery disease, examining 160 patients with CCTA and invasive coronary angiography. They followed them to measure the predictive value of percent stenosis versus absolute lumen diameter. Click here for the full story.
FDG-PET has long been advocated as a prime modality to stage various cancers and assess patient treatment, but it may not be as effective when monitoring Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cases. Dutch researchers have questioned the value of FDG-PET after finding a high percentage of false-positive results among this patient population during or after curative treatment. Go to our Molecular Imaging Community, or click here.
