Panel of Specialist Speakers Explain Development and Real World Application of CARESTREAM OnSight 3D Extremity System

Visitors to ECR 2018, to be held in Vienna, will have the opportunity to learn more about the development and application of Cone Beam CT imaging and the important benefits it brings to weight bearing exams. The programme for a Satellite Symposium entitled ‘OnSight 3D Extremity System – Point of Care CBCT’, organised by Carestream, will detail the evolution of CBCT; the use of CBCT in clinical and emergency settings; the clinical indications for weight bearing CBCT; different generations of metal artefact reduction algorithms and workflow and usability of the Carestream CBCT system.
The Symposium will be held on the second floor, Room Z of the ACV at 14.00 on Friday March 2. Speakers will include Dr John Carrino MD from Baltimore, US, who will also moderate the session; Dr Xavier Montet from Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland; Dr Thibaut Jacques from Lille, France; Dr Mikael Boesen from Copenhagen, Denmark; Dr Mika Kortesniemi from Helsinki, Finland and Roisin Dobbin-Stacey from Cobalt Health in Cheltenham, UK.
All delegates to ECR will be welcome to this timely seminar and remote delegates will also be able to follow the Symposium online. There will be opportunities to examine the Carestream OnSight CBCT system in closer detail on the Carestream booth, number 405 in Expo X4. Click here for more details of Carestream at ECR.

Human blood from donors can be stored for use up to 42 days, and it is a mainstay therapy in transfusion medicine. However, recent studies looking back at patient records have shown that transfusion with older, stored blood is associated with adverse effects.
For severely injured patients who have massive bleeding and receive many transfusion units, older blood was associated with dysfunction in blood flow, increased injury and inflammation in critical end organs, and lung infection.
In a collaborative study using a mouse model, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers from the departments of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Biostatistics, Emergency Medicine, Pathology, and Surgery have found mechanistic links between older stored red blood cell transfusions and subsequent bacterial pneumonia.
This may reveal new approaches to improve safety of stored red blood cell transfusions.
The key player is free heme, a breakdown product from degraded red blood cells. Heme is part of the oxygen-binding haemoglobin pigment that gives blood cells their red colour and carries oxygen through the body from the lungs. While in the red blood cell, heme is relatively safe; but once outside the confines of the red cells, free heme is toxic and can cause tissue injury. During storage and upon transfusion, stored red blood cells lyse open, releasing free heme.
An adverse role for heme suggests that finding ways to limit heme exposure or prevent heme toxicity may improve safety of stored red blood cell transfusions, say UAB researchers Rakesh Patel, Ph.D., and Jean-Francois Pittet, M.D.
Patel is a professor of pathology and director of the Center for Free Radical Biology, and Pittet is a professor of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at the UAB School of Medicine.
University of Alabama at Birminghamwww.uab.edu/news/research/item/9221-blood-stored-longer-may-be-less-safe-for-patients-with-massive-blood-loss-and-shock
 

An innovative technique that uses mammography to determine the biological tissue composition of a tumour could help reduce unnecessary breast biopsies, according to a new study.
Mammography has been effective at reducing deaths from breast cancer by detecting cancers in their earliest, most treatable stages. However, many women are called back for additional diagnostic imaging and, in many cases, biopsies, for abnormal findings that are ultimately proven benign. Research estimates this recall rate to be more than 10 percent in the United States.
“The callback rate with mammography is much higher than ideal,” said the study’s first author, Karen Drukker, PhD, research associate professor from the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago. “There are costs and anxiety associated with recalls, and our goal is to reduce these costs but not miss anything that should be biopsied.”
Dr. Drukker and colleagues recently studied a new technique called three-compartment breast (3CB) imaging. John Shepherd, PhD, currently at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and his team developed 3CB while he was at the University of California in San Francisco. By measuring the water, lipid and protein tissue composition throughout the breast, 3CB might provide a biological signature for a tumour. For instance, more water in the tumour tissue might indicate angiogenesis.
For the study, the researchers acquired dual-energy mammograms from 109 women with breast masses that were suspicious or highly suggestive of a malignancy immediately prior to biopsy. The ensuing biopsies showed 35 masses to be invasive cancers, while the remaining 74 were benign.
3CB images were derived from the dual-energy mammograms and analysed along with mammography radiomics developed by Maryellen L. Giger, PhD, and her team at the University of Chicago for use in computer-aided diagnosis on breast images.
The combination of 3CB image analysis and radiomics improved the positive predictive value in breast masses deemed suspicious. The combined method improved positive predictive value from 32 percent for visual interpretation alone to almost 50 percent, with an almost 36 percent reduction in biopsies. The 3CB-radiomics method missed one of the 35 cancers, for a 97 percent sensitivity rate.
“These results are very promising,” Dr. Drukker said. “Combining 3CB image analysis with mammography radiomics, the reduction in recalls was substantial.”
Dr. Drukker said the combined 3CB-radiomics approach has the potential to play an increasingly prominent role in breast cancer diagnosis and perhaps also screening. She noted that 3CB can easily be added to mammography without requiring extensive modifications of existing equipment.
“The patient is already getting the mammography, plus we get all this extra information with only a 10 percent additional dose of radiation,” she said.

Radiological Society of North Americahttps://tinyurl.com/ychyg9wa

A new Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Accelerator Programme as part of new Calls for proposals was launched in July by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). Of the other topics launched in the Calls, many address brain disorders (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, major depression) and immune-mediated diseases (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis and lupus as well as inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s and colitis, and skin diseases like dermatitis and psoriasis). Among other things, the topics aim to make clinical trials more patient-centric, contribute to medicines safety, and apply blockchain technologies to the drug development and health sectors.
The Calls for proposals launched in July (IMI2 – Calls 15 and 16) have a total budget of EUR 434 million. Around half of this comes from Horizon 2020, the EU’s framework programme for research and innovation. The other half comes from EFPIA companies and IMI Associated Partners; these do not receive any funding from IMI but contribute to projects, mainly through ‘in-kind’ contributions (e.g. researchers’ time).
The aim of the new IMI AMR Accelerator is to progress the development of new medicines to treat or even prevent resistant bacterial infections in Europe and worldwide. The programme comprises three pillars. A Capability Building Network will coordinate the programme and carry out research to strengthen the scientific basis in the AMR field, while the Tuberculosis Drug Development Network will work to accelerate the discovery of new combinations of drugs to treat TB. Finally, Portfolio Building Networks will support collaborative efforts to discover, develop and advance new and innovative agents to prevent or treat AMR. The scope of the AMR Accelerator is broad; under one structure, it will address many of the scientific challenges of AMR, and it will support the development of new ways to prevent AMR (including vaccines) and treatments (including new antibiotics). More broadly, the IMI AMR Accelerator also contributes to the European action plan on AMR, which includes a chapter on boosting research, development and innovation for AMR.

The 42^nd IHF World Hospital Congress returns to Australia October 10th after more than 20 years with health leaders from more than 40 countries joining together at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre for three days of discussions, hosted by the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA), with support from Queensland Health’s Clinical Excellence Division.
‘A big g’day to health leaders from around the world here in Brisbane eager to learn from each other over the next three days and return home inspired to improve the way we deliver healthcare to meet 21^st century needs and expectations’, said AHHA Board Chair Dr Deborah Cole.
The World Hospital Congress, under the umbrella of the International Hospital Federation (IHF), is a unique event that brings health leaders from around the globe together annually to share views and experiences, network and develop excellence in healthcare and hospital leadership. Over the last three years the event has been held in Taipei, Durban and Chicago, and it now heads to Australia for the first time since 1997.
‘Over three days, the World Hospital Congress will delve in and unpack the themes of value-based healthcare, integrated care beyond the four walls of the hospital and the data and technology needed to support this transformation’, said IHF President Dr Francisco Balestrin.
‘If you are interested in value-based healthcare you will hear from the concept co-creator and innovation expert Professor Elizabeth Teisberg who will provide her insights into the evolution that needs to take place in healthcare’, said Dr Cole. ‘She will be joined by health leaders who are implementing value-based healthcare in Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore, Denmark and Australia.
‘If you are interested in integrated care you can learn from Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Trust on the UK experiences in his keynote address. Dr Robert Pearl, Forbes Magazine contributor and former Permanente Medical Group Chief Executive Officer, will discuss the transformation required for integrated healthcare to maximise the health of people and communities.
‘If you are interested in the impact of data and technology on healthcare delivery you can learn what Spain is achieving with health apps, how Zambia is using technological innovations to provide better quality of care in low resource settings and how the Mayo Clinic in the USA has used technology to review and improve opioid prescribing’, said Dr Cole.
‘We are on the cusp of big changes in healthcare services around the world that will bring great benefits to patients, as well as to clinical staff and administrators’, said Dr Balestrin. ‘Let’s learn from each other and make this future happen.’

www.hospitalcongress2018.com
www.ahha.asn.au
www.ihf-fih.org