MRI-safe pacemakers? As far as the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is concerned, all pacemakers are MRI-safe.

OK, we’re exaggerating. But apparently not by much. Cardiologists at Johns Hopkins say they’ve developed a protocol that has allowed safe MRI scans of patients with pacemakers and defibrillators—older devices, not the new MRI-safe models.

A study published in the October 4 issue of … read more »

Erroneous CT scan readings by four British Columbia radiologists in 2010 have so far contributed to at least three deaths and serious continuing harm to the health of several others, the health minister for the Canadian province announced this week.

We’ve written previously about the mess in the province, where an examination of the work of four radiologists eventually involved checking … read more »

Earlier this week, Diagnostic Imaging explored several ways in which MRI machines are becoming more patient-friendly. This comes on the heels, however, of a PLoS ONE research article that indicates they still have a way to go.

Diagnostic Imaging cited three specific improvements:

Extremity scanners, which scan ankles, wrists, and other parts of extremities more efficiently (and more cheaply) than running a … read more »

The use of CT scans to diagnose appendicitis has soared since the 1990s, according to a new study. What the study doesn’t address is whether that’s good or bad for patients.

The numbers are certainly dramatic. The study, published online August 1 in Annals of Emergency Medicine, analyzed a sample of 447,011 U.S. emergency department visits from 1992 through 2006, using … read more »

A prestigious medical organization, asked to analyze the Food and Drug Administration’s “fast-track” approval process for medical devices, took nearly two years to conclude that:

The process is fundamentally flawed and should be scrapped;
Even though it hasn’t actually approved any unsafe or ineffective devices;
And the organization has no specific recommendations for a replacement process.

Can you blame the FDA for responding, in … read more »

A British Columbia woman is suing a former British Columbia radiologist because, she says, his misreading of her CT scan led to the unnecessary removal of part of her colon.

The accused doctor, Mansukhlal Mavji Parmar, MB BCh BAO, helped trigger a widespread, and still ongoing, investigation of radiology practices in the Canadian province. In February, the province’s health services minister … read more »

Kinect, the hands-free game-control system for the Microsoft Xbox 360 video game console, has already entered the operating room. Now it has edged into the autopsy room as well.

For several years, the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland has been using CT and MRI machines to perform virtual autopsies, or “virtopsies.”

At the moment, the scans … read more »

The same advanced imaging procedure may vary in cost by thousands of dollars—within the same town.

change:healthcare, a national company “on a mission to arm employees with the weapons necessary to reverse the escalating upward trend of U.S. healthcare costs,” according to its Web site, has released a new report on imaging costs. The report is part of a quarterly series … read more »

Heart Check America, a multistate chain that offers full-body CT scans and other “preventive imaging,” suffered the latest in a series of legal blows last week when Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued the company.

The attorney general accused owner Sheila Haddad and manager David Haddad, her son, of using “unfair and deceptive business practices” to pressure customers into 10-year screening … read more »

Monster tornadoes slashed across northern Alabama on April 27, leaving a horror-movie scene of obliterated buildings and broken bodies — including broken young bodies.

The storms struck in the early evening, shredding some of Birmingham’s northern suburbs. (To get an idea of their malevolence — there’s no other word that fits — click here.) Minutes later, patients began flooding into Children’s … read more »