A hybrid SPECT/CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare, the Symbia T TruePoint, has been installed in the muclear medicine department at Southend Hospital, part of Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Essex, U.K.
There is a 5.8 percent yearly increase in the market for molecular imaging devices and the market is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2014, according to a market research report from Kalorama Information.
Molecular Imaging and Contrast Agent Database (MICAD) has added 17 in vivo molecular imaging and contrast agents to its database, increasing the total to 865 agents.
Diagnostic imaging manufacturer Digirad has launched an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) initiative aimed at the expansion of the distribution of its solid-state technology.
SPECT imaging revealed that cocaine addicted subjects and control subjects differ in subcortical, limbic and cortical response to cholinergic probes in areas relevant to craving, learning and memory; findings that could result in new treatment options for individuals addicted to cocaine, according to a study published in the June issue of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Highmark, beginning in September, will require general practitioners, cardiologists and other providers to request an authorization before performing myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI).
Combined imaging techniques of using a neurotransmitter analog to detect impairment of cardiac sympathetic innervation and myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) to detect impaired myocardium can provide crucial information on the selection of patients at greater risk for sudden death and who would most likely benefit from prophylactic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) use, according to a study published in this month's Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Cardiac CT angiography (CCTA) appears to be cost effective compared with SPECT imaging, and it does not result in higher downstream resource utilization, according to research led by Eddie Hulten, MD, of Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and shared at the Society for Cardiac Computed Tomography (SCCT) conference in July.
Written by Manjula Puthenedam
“By comparing the redistribution results of technetium-99m sestamibi at five minutes and 60 minutes post stress after a single injection, we can come up with an accurate picture of how much heart disease is present, and with a reduced radiation exposure,” said Richard M. Fleming, MD, in an interview.
Oncology company GenSpera has acquired a patent application for technology relating to medical imaging from the Sydney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
Accelerated cardiac MR (CMR) perfusion imaging using scan acceleration techniques such as parallel imaging is clinically feasible and offers excellent diagnostic performance in detecting coronary artery disease (CAD), according to the July issue of Journal of American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.
Written by Chris Kaiser
PHILADELPHIA—What began as single-slice CT scanning has now evolved into dynamic volume scanning, utilizing as many as 320 detectors. The possibilities for wide-area detector technology include consistently low radiation exposure for coronary CT angiography (CCTA), as well as myocardial perfusion imaging, kinetic opacification slopes that distinguish between normal and diseased arteries and vascular profiling, according to Frank Rybicki, MD, PhD, who spoke July 21 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).
The estimated glomerular filtration rate, which represents renal function, might play an important role in identifying high-risk diabetic persons who would benefit most from myocardial perfusion imaging by SPECT for suspected ischemia, according to a study published in this month's Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.
The Molecular Imaging Probes and Contrast Agents Database (MICAD), created at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health via the PubMed/MedLine databases and other sources, has added 17 new agents, increasing the total to 841 agents in the database.
The addition of Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals’ Zemiva imaging data to initially available clinical information contributes to the early diagnosis and evaluation of myocardial ischemia and acute coronary syndrome, according to a Phase 2 clinical trial published in the July 20 edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).
In the era of isotope shortages and heightened awareness of radiation dose exposure, it should come as good news that if low-risk patients have a normal stress myocardial perfusion imaging study, they need not undergo the conventional complementary rest study, according to a study in the May/June issue of the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology.
Written by Manjula Puthenedam
Cardiac imaging procedures represent an important source of ionizing radiation in the U.S., and the distribution of cumulative effective doses can lead to sizable radiation exposure for many individuals, according to a study published online July 7 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Better strategies to minimize the radiation exposure from cardiac imaging procedures should be encouraged, said the study's lead author Jersey Chen, MD, in an interview.
Among patients with coronary artery disease and left ventricular ejection fraction greater than 35 percent, the extent of stress myocardial perfusion imaging perfusion defects is associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death, according to a study published in the July 13 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. However, an accompanying editorial questions whether the study's design is equipped to make this conclusion.
Pilgrim Hospital in Lincolnshire, England has installed a Symbia S SPECT from Siemens Healthcare and Europe’s first Symbia.net Clinical Workflow Server, a client-server technology for remote processing and reading of nuclear medicine data.
The reference range of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and LV volumes from gated 82Rb PET/CT varies significantly among available software programs and therefore cannot be used interchangeably, according to a study in the June issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
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