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A coronary CT angiography-only approach -- when factoring in a $20,000 threshold level for cost per correct diagnosis and $50,000 per quality-adjusted life-year -- is the most cost-effective diagnostic strategy for the evaluation of patients presenting with stable chest pain without known coronary artery disease (CAD) with intermediate CAD prevalence, according to a decision analysis study published in the March issue of Radiology.
Positron, a molecular imaging solutions company focused on nuclear cardiology, has sold its Attrius PET scanner to Ochsner Health System of Louisiana.
A majority of patients (61 percent) evaluated for chest pain of uncertain cardiac cause have a coronary artery calcium (CAC) score of zero, which predicts both a normal SPECT result and an excellent short-term outcome, according to a single-center study published online Feb. 8 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The absence of coronary calcification does not exclude obstructive stenosis or the need for revascularizations in patients suspected to have coronary artery disease (CAD), based on results of a substudy of the CORE 64 registry data published in the Feb. 16 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
For ruling out coronary artery disease (CAD), multidetector CT (16-slice or more) is more accurate than MRI, according to a retrospective study in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine.
Image quality of multi-detector CT scans, when utilized for the noninvasive detection of coronary artery stenosis, can be significantly associated with patient characteristics, including ethnicity, body mass index, heart rate and the presence of breathing artifact, but not with coronary artery calcium (CAC) score at a patient level, based on a study in the January issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
Written by Justine Cadet
CHICAGO—Negative results from an automated coronary CT angiography (CCTA) reader may be useful for triaging emergency department (ED) patients, based on a study presented Monday at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference. Conversely, the researchers determined that positive automated results require further interpretation by an experienced reader.
New computer-aided detection software for coronary CT angiography could help physicians rule out narrowing of the coronary arteries in patients with low to moderate risk of coronary artery disease, according to a study published online Nov. 5 in European Radiology.
The FDA has rejected King Pharmaceuticals' new drug application for CorVue (binodenoson), a cardiac pharmacologic stress agent for use in SPECT exams.
Low-dose cardiac computed tomography angiography (CCTA) allows for the accurate evaluation of coronary artery disease, but with significantly less effective radiation dose to patients compared with coronary angiography, according to a study in the October issue of Heart.
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Tuesday, March 09 2010
Rcadia Medical Imaging has been issued a CE Mark for its computer-aided detection software--the COR Analyzer system--that helps identify patients with significant coronary artery disease by an analysis of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) studies.
Written by Kaitlyn Dmyterko
Concern about the cancer risk from low medical level radiation, particularly low-dose radiation delivered from CT scans, has been growing in the healthcare community.
The FDA has granted clearance for the marketing of the Eagle Eye Platinum digital intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) catheter in the U.S. by intravascular systems developer, Volcano.
An international study on CT perfusion imaging at 15 medical centers in eight countries, led by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, have enrolled the first dozen patients to figure out how well various imaging tests can measure the degree of blockage or narrowing in any particular artery and their use in predicting patients who need catheterization or angioplasty, or bypass surgery.
A technique involving the combination of adenosine perfusion CT imaging and cardiac CT angiography adds incremental value in the detection of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) for high-risk individuals, according to the results of a study published in the February issue of Radiology.
Sherrie C. Oberg, president and CEO of the microsphere drug developer Acusphere, will retire from her position as CEO to become the company’s executive chair.
The Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) will increase the reimbursement for PET myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) by 24 percent in the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System, which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2010.
Adding coronary artery calcium score testing with CT in patients with a normal SPECT scan could help to identify those at high long-term risk for cardiac events, in whom an earlier focus on aggressive risk factor modification and other medical therapies may be beneficial, according to new findings published in the Nov. 10 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
In patients with heart rates of 65 beats per minutes or less, dual-source CT angiography has a higher specificity and accuracy at segment-based analysis than 64-slice CT, but provides a comparable diagnostic accuracy on a patient-based level, according to a study in this month's Radiology.
The use of contrast agents during stress echocardiography does not lead to short- or long-term risk of death or myocardial infarction, according to a study in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging.
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The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.