A decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court exposes radiologists (and other medical professionals) to a new avenue of legal liability for infliction of emotional distress.

According to court documents, Jeanelle Toney underwent a pelvic ultrasound in March 2003 at The Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. Radiologist Maheep Goyal, MD, told her, according to Pennsylvania’s Superior Court, “that … read more »

To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, it was not a quiet week for the Food and Drug Administration.

In Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. At the much less bucolic FDA, some scientists and doctors are fighting with administrators over approval of radiological devices, and the administrators are … 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 »

A new camera so fast that it can capture the movement of a burst of light—in slow motion—could lead to a new way of imaging.

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have developed a video camera that can capture 1 trillion exposures per second. So it can show a single burst of light traveling in slow motion through … read more »

We’ve just finished reading a thrilling saga about the difficulty of drawing medical specialists to rural areas, confusion (or laxity) among bureaucracies regarding responsibilities, the awkwardness of reporting incompetent colleagues or superiors, and the consequences of radiologists getting in over their heads.

We’re referring to the official report about incorrect CT scan readings in the Canadian province of … read more »

“Mammogram in a Suitcase.” That’s the headline from a GE Healthcare media event in New York last week. It’s exciting, if a little premature.

The suitcase-size (make that “large suitcase–size”; it would fit in a car trunk, but good luck cramming it into an airplane’s overhead bin) digital mammography device, called SenoCase, is just a concept. GE’s engineers haven’t yet created … read more »

Ana Mejia had seven ultrasounds during her pregnancy. During none of them did her obstetrician or the ultrasound technicians notice that only one leg of her baby had developed, and that her son’s arms ended above the elbows.

If someone had, Mejia said during court testimony this week, she would have had an abortion.

Instead, Bryan Santana, now almost 3, can’t chase … 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 former ultrasound technician from Willard, Ohio, was sentenced this week to eight years in prison for secretly photographing and videotaping girls as they undressed to undergo procedures at the imaging clinic where he worked.

Jaime Aguirre, 44, was arrested in October 2009 when police, during a routine traffic stop, found more than 200 still and video images of partially clothed … read more »

Health officials are trying to ban 3-D ultrasound machines from the state of Haryana, India. Mobile ultrasound machines are already banned (ineffectually)  in much of the state.

What’s the problem? Ultrasound scans reveal the sex of fetuses. In India, many parents prefer boys. So ultrasound machines ultimately lead to the elective abortions of many female fetuses.

According to The Times of India, … read more »