Prepping for the helium shortage

As Congress went to recess last week, one item of business left unfinished was an extension of the Federal Helium Reserve  program, a reservoir of the gas that accounts for 40 percent of the U.S. consumption, according to the Washington Post.

A helium shortage would have a ripple effect throughout medical imaging as most MRI scanners still rely on liquid helium for cooling.

For more on what’s being done to avert the shortage, click the link below.

Around the web

The nuclear imaging isotope shortage of molybdenum-99 may be over now that the sidelined reactor is restarting. ASNC's president says PET and new SPECT technologies helped cardiac imaging labs better weather the storm.

CMS has more than doubled the CCTA payment rate from $175 to $357.13. The move, expected to have a significant impact on the utilization of cardiac CT, received immediate praise from imaging specialists.

The newly cleared offering, AutoChamber, was designed with opportunistic screening in mind. It can evaluate many different kinds of CT images, including those originally gathered to screen patients for lung cancer. 

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