The new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will get more than $3 billion over the next decade to conduct “comparative effectiveness” research and suggest the best ways to treat various illnesses. Will anybody listen?

Don’t bet on it, suggests a Kaiser Health News article. Writer Julie Appleby cites the example of vertebroplasty—the injection of medical cement into compression fractures of the … read more »

Researchers at Johns Hopkins In-Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center in Baltimore have begun a breathtaking five-year initiative to detect and treat breast, prostate, and other common cancers at their very earliest stages—when they’re hiding inside cells.

More than $8 million in grants from the National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) are fueling the initiative. It builds … read more »

Low doses of ionizing radiation may not carry as much cancer risk as we’ve thought, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Breast-cancer researcher Mina Bissell, PhD, explained:
Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work better than at higher doses. This nonlinear DNA damage response casts … read more »

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 »

We talk a lot these days about the risks of radiation exposure to patients, but what about the risks to doctors? Specifically, to interventional cardiologists who perform heart surgery using X-ray-guided catheters?

A new study, published online Tuesday in the European Heart Journal, suggests that the level of ionizing radiation to which they’re exposed does cause cell damage, but that the … 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 »

Preliminary research in Toronto indicates that a special formulation of antioxidants taken orally before imaging can reduce cell damage from ionizing radiation by as much as 50 percent.

“In our initial small study, we found that preadministering to patients a proprietary antioxidant formulation resulted in a notable dose-dependent reduction in DNA injury,” said Kieran J. Murphy, MD. He added:
This could play … read more »

An Ohio hospital and its former head of radiology have settled the radiologist’s lawsuit, which alleged that the hospital didn’t keep its promises to provide proper facilities. The radiologist may resume practicing at the hospital, but further litigation nevertheless may ensue because, says his lawyer, the hospital still isn’t keeping its promises.

Boris A. Karaman, MD, filed suit in September 2009 … read more »

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) can be safe and effective for managing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with cirrhosis, and should be the treatment of choice in cases where tumors are small and few, according to Italian researchers.

HCC—liver cancer—is the third-leading cause of cancer death worldwide, though it is much more common in areas where hepatitis B or C is prevalent, such … read more »

The former director of interventional radiology at two hospitals in Louisville, Kentucky, has filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit. She says she was fired because she objected to the hospitals’ practice of allowing technicians and nurses to operate radiation equipment even though they didn’t hold a license to do so.

Deborah Huber filed the suit last week, seeking compensation for lost wages and … read more »