As the healthcare community strives to become more transparent as a means to improve care, some have turned to cardiac surgery quality assessments or physician report cards. However, others turn their noses up to these types of public report cards, saying that the information may not always be 100 percent accurate.

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St. Jude Medical has received FDA clearance and immediately will launch the Amplatzer Vascular Plug 4 for use in transcatheter embolization procedures within the peripheral vasculature.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has joined the list of major medical associations that have adopted policies that contradict the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations for screening mammography. AMA updated its screening mammography recommendations at its annual policymaking meeting June 19.

The FDA has approved Siemens Healthcare Somatom Definition Edge single-source CT system for sale in the U.S.

Researchers recommended making chronic kidney disease (CKD) a coronary heart disease risk equivalent after their results showed the risk of MI was similar for CKD and diabetic patients in a study published online June 19 in The Lancet. Writers in an accompanying editorial praised the study despite its falling short on its primary outcome.

 There was a familiar cast at the annual meeting of the Society for Imaging informatics in Medicine in Orlando, Fla. As in previous years, Katherine Andriole, Paul Chang, Keith Dreyer, Ramin Khorasani and Eliot Siegel and other imaging informatics giants shared their knowledge with an eager audience. This year, the statesmen (or statespeople) of SIIM shared the stage with a group of newcomersthe millennials, who offered a fresh and futuristic perspective.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a review of all available scientific data related to the environmental risks of breast cancer, and while the report investigated a number of consumer products linked to the disease, the most significant conclusion was that exposure to ionizing radiation is one of the leading environmental factors most strongly associated with breast cancer, according to an analysis of IOMs findings published online June 11 in the Archives of Internal Medicine (AIM).