Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a crucial component of healthcare to help augment physicians and make them more efficient. In medical imaging, it is helping radiologists more efficiently manage PACS worklists, enable structured reporting, auto detect injuries and diseases, and to pull in relevant prior exams and patient data. In cardiology, AI is helping automate tasks and measurements on imaging and in reporting systems, guides novice echo users to improve imaging and accuracy, and can risk stratify patients. AI includes deep learning algorithms, machine learning, computer-aided detection (CAD) systems, and convolutional neural networks. 

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Sun burned: Ophthalmoscopy spies woman's retinopathy after solar eclipse

Recent research, led by Chris Wu, MD, with the department of ophthalmology at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai in New York, in JAMA Ophthalmology discussed the case of one woman who experienced acute solar retinopathy, where researchers used adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscopy to gather high-resolution images of her eye structures.

Pathology slides may need to make way for cellular CT scans

Scientists at Arizona State University have demonstrated the clinical possibilities of live-cell computed tomography (LCCT), successfully completing a proof-of-concept project aimed at detailing the nuclei and mitochondria in cancer and immune-system cells—live and in 3D.

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AI technique turns PET scans into MR images

South Korean researchers have used a budding machine-learning technique to generate high-quality structural MR images from amyloid PET scans of dementia patients’ brains. They were then able to quantify cortical amyloid load from these MR-less images, which may open the door to ordering PET scans alone for numerous imaging scenarios in which PET/MR is now a preferred diagnostic pathway.

‘Comatose,’ ‘vegetative’ patients often awake and somewhat aware

A police officer who was shot through the head and declared all but brain dead is slowly but surely regaining cognitive function, and functional MRI is playing a role in his recovery.

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RSNA 2017: fMRI, neurofeedback may help quiet tinnitus

Tinnitus—the perception of sound, often ringing, without external noise—can be a difficult condition to treat, because, in many cases, an exact cause cannot be identified. Recent work presented at RSNA 2017 showed promise, though, by using neurofeedback and functional MRI (fMRI) to identify activity in the brain’s auditory cortex.

Nuclear MRI moves science 1 step closer to imitating ‘Fantastic Voyage’

Scientists in China are working on a way to magnetize a type of algae called spirulina, which is already in use as a dietary supplement, and then track its movements in the body using nuclear magnetic resonance.

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Common characteristics in sonograms of malignant thyroid nodules

Up to two-thirds of thyroid ultrasound examinations will reveal nodules, though only a small percentage prove to be malignant. Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) can help distinguish between malignant and benign tissue, but the test is not cost-effective in every case.

Optical imaging, ultrasound combine for no-dose pediatric neuroimaging

Biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are tapping a $3 million NIH grant to develop photoacoustic tomography, or “PACT,” for pediatric neuroimaging.

Around the web

RBMA President Peter Moffatt discusses declining reimbursement rates, recruiting challenges and the role of artificial intelligence in transforming the industry.

Deepak Bhatt, MD, director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and principal investigator of the TRANSFORM trial, explains an emerging technique for cardiac screening: combining coronary CT angiography with artificial intelligence for plaque analysis to create an approach similar to mammography.

A total of 16 cardiology practices from 12 states settled with the DOJ to resolve allegations they overbilled Medicare for imaging agents used to diagnose cardiovascular disease.