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Archive for month: August, 2020
Medical imaging: can the growth be sustained?
During the last decade the field of medical imaging has advanced by leaps and bounds facilitated by innovations in ultrasound, MRI, CT and PET technologies as well as dual modality approaches such as PET/MRI and PET/CT. These developments have allowed faster scanning and acquisition of clearer, coloured 3D images, whilst automatic dose regulation for imaging technologies involving ionizing radiation is inexorably lowering the dose to which patients are exposed. Use of ultrasound has expanded well beyond obstetrics, MRI is now routine in neurology, high speed CT imaging is the standard practice in cardiology and PET has become integral to modern oncology.
Both hospitals and patients have clearly benefited from all these innovations, with studies correlating use of relevant imaging modalities in accident and emergency departments with shorter patient waiting times and fewer hospital admissions. In the case of inpatients, use of medical imaging has been correlated with shorter hospital stays, a reduced need for exploratory surgery and a decline in mortality. Sadly, though, as financial problems continue to affect much of Europe as well as the US and Japan, the increasing costs incurred for medical imaging technology are becoming economically unsustainable. Is it possible to reduce these costs yet continue to deliver quality healthcare?
The purchase of refurbished rather than new equipment is increasingly becoming a prudent way for hospitals and clinics to reduce costs in the developed as well as less developed countries. Because technological advances have been so swift, larger (and wealthier) institutions may replace their quality MRI or CT systems with even more up to date models and
Sepsis: ICU bedside testing
The highly compromised physical state of ICU patients requires continual monitoring, rapid diagnostics and quick interventions of problematical conditions as they arise. It is within this environment that
Point-of-care testing expands the central laboratory reach
Connectivity from a central lab to point-of-care made a long way from the early days in the 1990s. Today, while issues with connectivity, soft- and hardware are not as troublesome, labs still fall short of the ultimate goal of using such devices by plug-and-play with their existing IT infrastructure. However, most of today
Molecular imaging: a prophetic means to investigate disease
Medical researchers have long been fascinated by the possibility of studying molecular pathways inside a human being, in real time. This is now possible thanks to the new biomedical technology of molecular imaging.
The technology has its roots in nuclear medicine but also draws heavily on disciplines like molecular biology and cellular chemistry, medical physics, pharmacology and bioinformatics as well as traditional imaging techniques.
Deploying early warning weapons
Molecular imaging allows for the non-invasive visualization, characterization and quantification of cellular/sub-cellular targets and pathways in living subjects. Most distinctively, it allows for biological processes to be investigated and calibrated within their own environment, rather than through in-vitro or ex-vivo cell cultures in the laboratory.
As compared to more conventional imaging techniques, which are based on measuring differences in target density, molecular imaging uses biomarker probes to produce chemical reactions/molecular changes in the target area, and thereby alter the image.
By studying the cells of a living subject in order to determine abnormalities which form the basis of disease, the proponents of molecular imaging say it can be deployed as a far more effective weapon than traditional imaging/pathology techniques for assessment, risk profiling, evaluation and follow-up. The latter are constrained to focus on the end- or late-stage effects of molecular alterations.
A door to personalized medical care
In effect, molecular imaging allows for diagnosis of major diseases, before the onset of traditional symptoms. It is therefore expected to have a major economic impact due to savings on the burden of managing and treating a disease at a later, more advanced stage.
Molecular imaging also opens the door to personalized medical care, by revealing the specific clinical biology of the disease process in a particular patient. This is especially relevant for major cardiovascular conditions such as atherosclerosis, thrombosis, ischemia and heart failure or transplant rejection. Molecular imaging holds invaluable potential in the fight against cancers, by being able to precisely diagnose and stage tumours, assess and monitor therapies and provide extremely accurate prognoses. It also promises to become a front-line weapon in the battle against degenerative neurological diseases such as Alzheimer
Integrated solution takes radiologist closer to clinician?s therapeutic decision-making
Radiologists at Belgium
H?pital Tenon, Paris, reduces X-ray dosage by 50% with mobile digital radiography system
During a programme to modernize its buildings and equipment, H
Big data in healthcare: challenge or opportunity?
Thanks to the Web, the world is witnessing a deluge of data barely imaginable a decade ago.
Global data flows have increased fourfold over the past five years, and are expected to increase by a factor of three over the next five.
Networking giant Cisco speaks of the arrival of the Zettabyte Era at the end of 2015, when Internet traffic is expected to go over 1 billion terabytes (or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes). By 2017, the number of connected devices will be nearly three times as high as the world
European Centre of Excellence in ultra high-field MRI
Pooling the expertise of an international group of technological, clinical and academic organizations, Brains Unlimited, located at the Maastricht Health Campus, is to bring research from concept to commercialization. Providing an integrated platform for the imaging community, Brains Unlimited will help scientists and companies to find the key to many common disorders, as well as gain more insight into the development of human behaviour. Scannexus is the vehicle for the management of the operation , as well as providing the interface for the development and delivery of projects utilizing the scanner facility. It operates an open access infrastructure that includes 3T, 7T and 9.4T human (whole body) MRI scanners – opening up huge opportunities in advancing the understanding of human anatomy, functionality and metabolism. Dedicated researchers and a network of scientific, clinical and application expertise (via local – Netherlands, Belgium and Germany – universities, research institutes and hospitals)
