An Arkansas widower has filed a class action lawsuit against Lester E. Cox Medical Centers in the case involving the overradiation of 76 patients with brain cancer at CoxHealth of Springfield, Mo.
During testimony before a committee of the House of Representatives Friday, stakeholders from the medical imaging and radiation oncology communities extolled the life-saving virtues and safety of medical imaging procedures, but also agreed that more needs to be done to regulate the profession and protect patient safety.
TomoTherapy, a producer of advanced radiation therapy products, has reported a net loss of $3.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, as well as $37.4 million loss for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2009.
The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA), an association representing the manufacturers, innovators and developers of medical imaging and radiation therapy systems, has endorsed eight principles to reduce exposure to medical radiation.
Radiation therapy systems provider TomoTherapy has entered into a distribution agreement with radiation oncology solutions provider Nucletron.
In acknowledgment of recent media reports regarding serious errors in the delivery of radiation therapy, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) last week released a six-point patient protection plan that seeks to improve safety and quality, while reducing the chance of medical errors.
Researchers have found that prostate cancer treatments varied significantly between county hospitals and private providers. Patients treated in county hospitals are more likely to undergo surgery while patients treated in private facilities tend to receive radiation or hormone therapy, based on study findings published online Jan. 25 in Cancer.
Enrollment levels for radiologic technology programs, including radiography, radiation therapy and nuclear medicine programs, have decreased for the second consecutive year and have seemingly reached a plateau throughout the past nine years, based on a recent survey published by the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT).
A study published in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology shows that 95 percent of radiation oncologists incorporated advanced imaging technologies, such as MRI, PET, SPECT, 4DCT, functional MRI and MR spectroscopy, into radiation therapy planning.
Post-lumpectomy radiation treatment for early-stage breast cancer can be safely reduced to four weeks by delivering a higher daily dose, according to the five-year results of a phase II study presented Wednesday at the 2009 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in Chicago.
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Use of an abridged radiation therapy could reduce the amounts of chemotherapy and toxicity in patients with advanced head and neck cancers, according to a study presented by Phuc Felix Nguyen-Tan, MD, Feb. 26 at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer symposium.
Pre-treatment maximal standardized uptake value (SUVmax) from FDG PET imaging of the primary tumor in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients is a strong predictor of prognosis, while pre-treatment SUVmax of the lymphadenopathy is significantly associated with distant metastasis, according to a study presented on Feb. 26 at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz.
The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) has appointed a new lung cancer committee chair, Jeffrey Bradley, MD, associate professor of radiation oncology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
An intense three-week course of radiation therapy is just as effective as the standard five-week regimen for women with early-stage breast cancer, according to a study in the Feb. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Through a collaborative effort by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the American College of Radiology (ACR), practice guidelines for image guided radiation therapy and stereotactic body radiation therapy have been created and released to assist practitioners in providing appropriate radiologic care for patients.
Regarding recent articles in the New York Times, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) in a statement acknowledged a number of rare but tragic events that occurred in the last decade involving people undergoing radiation therapy.
A national sample of older breast cancer patients (aged 68 to 83 years) found substantial racial disparities in the use of radiotherapy following breast-conserving surgery across much of the U.S., based on a recent study published yesterday in the early edition of Cancer.
Radiation technology company Eckert & Ziegler is planning to re-enter its radiation therapy division in the U.S. market by way of a strategic alliance with brachytherapy treatment information group Core Oncology of Santa Barbara, Calif.
In achieving local control within patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, radiation therapy (RT) is a an effective treatment, according to a study published Nov. 15 in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics.
Radiation therapy and chemotherapy given before prostatectomy is safe and may have the potential to reduce cancer recurrence and improve patient survival, based on study findings presented this week at the 2009 American Society of Radiology Oncology (ASTRO) conference in Chicago.
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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.