Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is more successful than traditional radiation therapy in avoiding "dry mouth" when treating head and neck cancers, but it is unknown whether the treatment is better or worse at reducing the size of tumors, based on a comparative-effectiveness review funded by the Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Avera McKennan Cancer Institute in Sioux Falls, S.D., has installed an intra-operative electron radiation therapy device for the treatment of breast cancer, IntraOps Mobetron.

Allscripts will integrate IntrinsiQ's IntelliDose chemotherapy management tool into its EHR product suite as a new offering for physician practices.

Recall rate and sensitivity for screening mammograms increased, whereas specificity decreased from 1996 to 2004 among women with a prior mammogram, and this trend remained after accounting for risk factors, according to a study published online May 26 in Radiology.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to revise the conditions of participation for both hospitals and critical access hospitals to allow a new credentialing and privileging process for physicians and practitioners providing telemedicine services.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The costs associated with using drug-eluting stents (DES) has greatly exceeded projected expectations, while the costs associated with using implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) is more in line with economic projections. Researchers claim the runaway costs of DES are because the technology is being used in patients in whom there is no proven benefit.

Infants born with congenital heart disease who undergo a surgical procedure with a right ventricle-pulmonary artery shunt are more likely to survive their first year and not require a heart transplant than those who have the procedure with the traditional approach, a modified Blalock-Taussig shunt, based on the SVR trial published in the May 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. However, after the first year, the two surgical procedures yield similar results.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging systems provider Michelson Diagnostics has developed a probe for the in vivo imaging of oral and gynecological tissue, for use with its VivoSight Multi-Beam OCT imaging system.