A conventional cardiac CT scan images a larger portion of a patient's body and then extracts the data pertinent to the cardiac question. A new approach being researched portends to image only the heart, thus reducing radiation exposure to the patient.

Although General Electric reported $36.6 billion in revenue for the 2010 first quarter, reflecting a  5 percent decrease from a year ago, GE Healthcare saw a 5 percent increase in revenue.

With six million people in the U.S. currently undergoing CT scans and the number of CT scans alone experiencing an annual growth rate of about 11-13 percent between 2000-2005, the exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation is quite concerning, reported Kavitha Chinnaiyan, MD, program director of advanced cardiac imaging education within the division of cardiology at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., during the ACC.10 conference in Atlanta last month.

Magnetic resonance (MR) pulmonary angiography should be considered only at centers that routinely perform the procedure well and only for patients for whom standard tests are contraindicated, according to the prospective PIOPED III study, published April 6 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) can effectively evaluate cardiovascular abnormalities in real-time, high-resolution images, helping researchers evaluate the embryonic heart before it begins beating to help better prevent and treat heart-related problems before birth.

Mario J. Garcia, MD, a cardiologist who helped develop and clinically implement cardiac CT angiography, has been recruited as co-director of the Montefiore-Einstein Heart Center and as chief of cardiology within the department of medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

GAITHERSBURG, Md.CT took center stage at yesterdays morning session when the FDA began its two-day public meeting to hear responses about what manufacturers of medical imaging devices could do to help reduce unnecessary patient exposure to ionizing radiation.

In patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD), combined coronary artery calcium scoring and coronary CT angiography (CCTA) are no more beneficial than the CCTA protocol alone in the prediction of major adverse cardiac events, based on the results of a poster presentation at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual conference in Atlanta earlier this month.