Physicians, hospitals and medical organizations should refrain from sponsoring direct-to-consumer screening tests such as ultrasonography of carotid arteries, according to the authors of an opinion piece published online Aug. 28 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Such screening may lead to unnecessary downstream testing and additional costs with no benefit for patients.

Varian Medical Systems has filed a lawsuit against Elekta in a U.S. state court in Texas.

Patients who have had large vessel occlusion strokes but are ineligible for (or refractory to) intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator should be treated with the Trevo Retriever instead of the Merci Retriever, according to the TREVO 2 investigators, who presented trial results Aug. 26 at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will convene a meeting Jan. 30, 2013, to review available evidence and hear public testimony on the use of beta amyloid PET imaging for the management of dementia and neurodegenerative disease.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) said the Stage 2 meaningful use (MU) final rules were released publically on an unusually aggressive timeline, but will otherwise wait to issue a further analysis.

Research on the first highly selective and specific PET tracer for in vivo neurological imaging of tau pathologies has been published in the August issue of Journal of Alzheimers Disease.

Merck will seek regulatory approval of two cardiovascular drugs in the U.S. and Europe, the company announced Aug. 26 at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich. The drugs are a thrombin receptor antagonist (Vorapaxar) and extended release niacin/laropirprant (Tredaptive), the latter of which is designed to reduce high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

The FDA has approved Siemens Healthcare's Somatom Definition Edge single-source CT systemthe first single-source CT to use Siemens Stellar Detectorhas been approved for sale in the U.S.