The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has announced its "Summer Concert" series highlighting development work on distributed population queries.

Two tiny genetic variations can predict which patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma are most likely to develop radiation-induced second cancers years after treatment, according to a genome-wide association study (GWAS) published online July 24 in Nature Medicine. Knowing in advance who is at risk could help physicians tailor treatment to reduce the risks for patients who are most susceptible to long-term damage.

CT offers trauma radiologists on the battlefields and in local hospitals the capacity to calculate wound path trajectories, potentially speeding up and improving care and even enabling forensics teams to better understand the nature and direction of a casualtys shooter, according to a study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a $3,500 fine and Confirmatory Order to Bozeman Deaconess Hospital in Bozeman, Mont., for security violations involving radioactive materials stored at its medical lab.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a draft document to tackle the increasing challenge of maintaining confidentiality and the integrity of personally identifiable information by adding privacy controls to the catalog of security controls used to protect federal information and information systems.

Despite concerns about the risk of radiation-induced cancer among frequently scanned patients, most CT-induced cancers occur among rarelyrather than frequentlyscanned young adults, according to a study published in the July issue of Journal of American College of Radiology. The findings led the authors to call for enhanced education focused on appropriate utilization of CT scanning.

More than 400 organizations, companies and venture capital firms pressed leaders of Congress to repeal a recently enacted $20 billion medical device excise tax. In a July 18 letter, they claim the 2.3 percent tax will adversely impact patient care and innovation, as well as increase the costs of healthcare.

Although overwhelmingly safe, radiation oncologys error record does not stack up to similarly complex industries like aviation and nuclear power. In fact, national coordination of reporting and preventing radiation oncology errors has made little progress, while the field has become increasingly complex, according to a July article published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.