After growing rapidly for years, total Medicare CT utilization declined by 1.7 percent in 2010, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

Tests such as SPECT, PET and MRI offer noninvasive alternatives for diagnosing patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). Some recent evidence tilts in favor of these advanced imaging modalities, particularly when a multistep strategy is applied to diagnose CAD. By ruling out low-risk patients, these screening tools may help to eliminate unnecessary treatments and their associated costs.

Molecular imaging is spurring dramatic shifts in medicine. The latest venue to witness the revolution may be the surgical suite. The Advanced Multimodality Image-Guided Operating (AMIGO) suite at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) at Harvard Medical School in Boston weds intraoperative imaging and navigation systems in a surgical environment to set the stage for intraoperative applications of molecular imaging.

Siemens Healthcare has developed a detector for its CT scanners that can transmit analog data with minimal wiring, which the company said is designed to limit interference.

The capability to obtain complementary functional and anatomic information through a single device during a single session makes SPECT/CT an attractive option for numerous applications. In recent years, researchers have shown that SPECT/CT significantly improved the interpretation of planar studies of patients with thyroid cancer in the post-therapy setting. SPECT/CT is now being incorporated in the diagnostic setting to help in the post-operative staging, risk stratification and management of thyroid cancer patients. But is the evidence sufficient to change practice?

After a natural disaster, mammography facilities may face challenges in remaining compliant with the Mammography Quality Standards Act. The FDA has shared its recommendation for facilities damaged by a natural disaster.

Researchers have used PET imaging to visualize the binding sites of caffeine in a live human brain for the first time, according to a study published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The study suggested a connection between typical caffeine consumption and high A1 adenosine receptor (A1AR) occupancy, which could inform future work in neurodegenerative disorders.