The 4th [...]]]>

The first Radiology Technologists Conference will be organized with the Saudi Medicare 2010 from April 12 at Riyadh International Exhibition Center is set to present new applications and scientific research papers by 23 medical experts from around the world, said Mohammed Al-Hussaini, Deputy General Manager, Riyadh Exhibitions Company (REC), the organizer of the event.

The 4th Medical Devices Scientific Forum, accredited by the Saudi Council for Health Specialties will focus on topics related to medical devices technology and management and the challenges that health professionals working in the field are facing.

Saudi Medicare 2010 will have the participation of world-renowned specialists from Saudi Arabia, Europe, North America, the Middle East, and other parts of the world, he said.

The medical experts will provide in-depth discussions in areas such as medical imaging, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy and radiation protection, he said.

“The forum supports the Kingdom’s efforts to improve medical facilities and restructure the management of 218 government hospitals into private enterprises,” he explained.

The Radiology Technologists Conference, he said, will be of great interest as it is the first-ever event to focus on the future prospects and challenges of radiology technologists in Saudi Arabia.

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GE Healthcare will offer strategic support to Gulf Capital’s healthcare portfolio company investments, and the [...]]]>

GE Healthcare, the healthcare business subsidiary of General Electric Company, has signed a strategic alliance agreement with Gulf Capital, one of the largest private equity firms in the Gulf, to develop a regional chain of medical diagnostic and healthcare service centers.

GE Healthcare will offer strategic support to Gulf Capital’s healthcare portfolio company investments, and the two companies will collaborate closely to roll out and grow these investments into regional platforms offering world-class services.

The partnership will focus on a two-pronged approach of acquiring existing companies as well as launching greenfield operations with extended services including medical imaging, laboratory services, physiotherapy, dialysis services and oncology. The agreement provides Gulf Capital with access to the full range of GE Healthcare’s international commercial offerings, solutions and services.

The strategic alliance will focus on the delivery of world-class health care services in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, followed by an expansion at a later stage in other high growth markets.

Both parties will have access to and work closely with GE Capital Markets Corporate (CMC), an affiliate of GE Healthcare, to gain access to a wide range of financing solutions including equipment financing and financial advisory services. Gulf Capital will also have access to GE Healthcare’s global network of strategic and financial partners.

Commenting on the strategic alliance, Dr Karim El Solh, Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Capital said: “We are pleased to partner with GE Healthcare on the launch of such an exciting regional platform in the growing healthcare market in the MENA region. GE Healthcare brings deep industry expertise and a wide range of medical technologies and services and represents an ideal partner. Gulf Capital and GE Healthcare share the same “healthymagination” vision of improving the quality and delivery of healthcare services across the MENA region.”

Aziz Koleilat, General Manager of GE Healthcare for the Middle East region, said: “This strategic alliance agreement is a perfect complement to GE’s healthymagination initiative in the region. Creating a network of medical diagnostic and healthcare service centers across the region will serve as a key milestone in achieving our goal of earlier diagnosis through the use of innovative technologies, products and services.”?

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The project involves eight partners from six European countries and [...]]]>

Royal Philips Electronics announced that the project has achieved a major milestone in its ambitious plan to create a new medical imaging technique called hybrid PET/MR. This new technique is based on the simultaneous acquisition of time-of-flight Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance (MR) images.

The project involves eight partners from six European countries and has a total budget of around EUR 7 million. The ultimate goals of the project are to advance the accuracy of diagnostic imaging in cardiology and oncology and open up new fields in therapy planning, guidance and response monitoring.

A hybrid PET/MR scanner could simultaneously deliver the anatomical and functional information achievable using state-of-the-art MR scanners (e.g. soft tissue contrast and physiological processes in blood vessels) and the molecular imaging information provided by PET. As a result, it would combine the best of both worlds, which could ultimately help to pinpoint and characterize disease sites within the body more accurately than is currently possible.

For a hybrid scanner that offers simultaneous PET and MR image acquisition, two fundamental problems need to be solved: the development of MR-compatible PET detectors and a method of accounting for PET attenuation (the scattering of high-energy gamma rays generated by the PET tracers by parts of the human body).

The milestone that the HYPERImage team has reached is the development of a functional gamma-ray detector that meets the performance requirements of the latest time-of-flight PET scanners. The new gamma-ray detectors have been designed to be compatible with the strong static and dynamic magnetic fields that would be present in a combined PET/MR scanner. Furthermore, the team has achieved major progress with respect to MRI-based static and dynamic PET attenuation correction.

“Understanding the molecular mechanisms associated with cardiovascular disease and cancer, and the development of technologies focused on the early detection of these disease processes are the two main challenges of biomedical research,” said Prof. Dr. Valentin Fuster, Director of the National Center for Cardiovascular Research in Madrid (one of Europe’s leading research centers in cardiology) and the Cardiovascular Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. “I am convinced that the realization of a PET/MR technology platform will significantly help to improve the precision and the moment at which disease is diagnosed, two critical parameters for the successful treatment of many diseases.”

“The HYPERImage team’s combined expertise in semiconductor physics, signal processing and medical scanner design, together with its expert clinical knowledge, have moved the project an important step forward in the development of a new imaging tool that is intended to help clinicians diagnose and treat some of the world’s most prevalent killer diseases, such as breast cancer,” says Henk van Houten, senior vice president of Philips Research and head of Philips’ healthcare research program. “I am proud to say that proof-of-concept of an MR-compatible PET detector took the team less than 1.5 years to achieve. It clearly demonstrates that good collaborations lead to very fast progress.”

EU funding for the HYPERImage project, which is being provided as part of the EU’s 7th Framework Program, amounts to around EUR 5 million. The consortium partners will provide an additional EUR 2.3 million. The project started in 2008 and will run for three years.

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News ImageThe [...]]]>

Montreuil, France (PRWEB) October 2, 2009 — Ziosoft®, Inc. a leader in advanced visualization and analysis software for medical imaging and Global Imaging Online, French leader of PACS, RIS and Tele-Radiology solutions, announced today that the companies have signed an agreement for Global Imaging Online to distribute advanced 3D thin-client software solutions in France.

News ImageThe Ziostation system integrates seamlessly with the Global Imaging Online PACS solutions – DIAM4 servers. The Ziostation solution provides advanced visualization tools including CT and MR cardiac function analysis, calcium scoring, CT brain perfusion, advanced vessel analysis, colon analysis and multi-modality fusion analysis.

“I am excited about introducing Ziosoft’s 3D thin-client software in France “said Rainer Kabouya, new CEO of Global Imaging Online. “The breadth of products Ziosoft offers, the enterprise wide architecture and the exceptional system performance is a great complement to the current solutions of Global Imaging Online, and a major interest to the French radiology community. It will be a great addition for Global Imaging Online to the Tele-radiology solutions introduced in January 2009 with Expertise Radiologie partnership. I invite all French radiologists to come during the JFR congress – 16-20 Oct – Paris, to our booth (N° 1P05 – Hall 1) to have a demonstration of the advanced Ziosoft 3D applications.”

“We are pleased to be partnering with this proven and trusted Company that will enable us to offer Ziosoft’s products to radiologists and French clinicians, many of whom already recognize the capabilities of Global Imaging Online – more than 350 French sites are using DIAM4 PACS,” said Bart Hendriks, Ziosoft’s managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “We will be able to offer French customers an outstanding 3D thin-client product combined with the exceptional service and support of Global Imaging Online.”

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InteleOne and IntelePACS Sites Multiply Intelerad PACS Solutions in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Montreal, Quebec, September 29, 2009— Intelerad Medical Systems, an industry-leading PACS solution vendor, bolsters its PACS market presence with new contract signings and installations in the U.S., Canada and Australia. To see and hear video testimonials from some of Intelerad’s customers.

In the [...]]]>

InteleOne and IntelePACS Sites Multiply Intelerad PACS Solutions in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Montreal, Quebec, September 29, 2009— Intelerad Medical Systems, an industry-leading PACS solution vendor, bolsters its PACS market presence with new contract signings and installations in the U.S., Canada and Australia. To see and hear video testimonials from some of Intelerad’s customers.

In the United States, new IntelePACS® clients include St. Vincent General Hospital District of Leadville, Colorado and Colorado Springs Health Partners, P.C. Long time Intelerad client Radiology Imaging Associates, P.C. & Medical Imaging of Colorado of Englewood, CO have chosen Intelerad’s InteleOneTM solution to manage the workflow issues associated with reading from multiple PACS systems. In Australia, recent signings and installations include PRP Diagnostic Imaging of Sydney, NSW; Sydney Ultrasound for Women of Kogarah, NSW; Cabrini Health of Malvern, VIC; Maga Pty Ltd of West Perth, WA; Melbourne Radiology Clinic, and Ultrasound Care Pty Ltd of Sydney.

In Canada, recent IntelePACS signings include Valley X-Ray Services Ltd. of Abbotsford and Medical Centre Holdings Limited of Peterborough. Installations of IntelePACS were successfully completed at Associated Radiologists in Saskatoon, Valley X-Ray Services Ltd and Breast Centre Radiology Inc. in Edmonton.

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The impressive strides that have been made in the field of advanced imaging technology have led to major enhancements in a physician’s ability to diagnose a variety of diseases. However, since the use of and expenditures for imaging services have increased more rapidly than other physician-ordered services, without concomitant evidence of their value overall, government [...]]]>

The impressive strides that have been made in the field of advanced imaging technology have led to major enhancements in a physician’s ability to diagnose a variety of diseases. However, since the use of and expenditures for imaging services have increased more rapidly than other physician-ordered services, without concomitant evidence of their value overall, government and private insurers have taken steps to slow the growth of their use. At the same time, in an effort to avert enactment of more stringent imaging policies by Medicare and more intrusive steps by private health plans, specialty organizations have accelerated their efforts to better document the value of imaging and to eliminate services that are deemed unnecessary on the basis of clinical guidelines and other measures of best practice. Data that document a close connection between most imaging services and patients’ outcomes are currently lacking.

This report updates a study2 published in 2006 regarding new policies enacted by Congress that have unsettled physicians who perform imaging studies and other interests involved in the manufacture, leasing, and sale of the equipment. From 2000 through 2006, Medicare expenditures for such services — computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and nuclear medicine, including positron-emission tomography (PET) — rose from $3.6 billion to $7.6 billion (17% a year on average).3 This rate of growth was more rapid than that of any other service for which physicians billed Medicare during this period4 (Figure 1). Nationally, some 7000 sites offer MRI studies. By comparison, the United States has almost twice as many MRI units per million persons as any other industrialized country.

Although expenditures for imaging (including radiography and ultrasonography) represent only a minuscule fraction of the vast Medicare budget (about $14 billion of $457.5 billion in 2007), they have drawn more scrutiny recently because the program’s per-beneficiary spending nearly doubled between 2000 and 2006 (from $220 to $419, on average). In 2006, such spending varied by a factor of nearly eight among states, ranging from $62 in Vermont to $472 in Florida. The number of MRI studies per 1000 Medicare beneficiaries increased from almost none in 1985 to 50 in 1995 and then more than tripled, with 173 by 2005.6 Some physicians assert that the increased use of imaging services is offsetting other medical expenses, but aside from small case studies, there is little published evidence to document this view.

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Two nanoscale devices recently reported by University of Pittsburgh researchers in two separate journals harness the potential of carbon nanomaterials to enhance technologies for drug or imaging agent delivery and energy storage systems, in one case, and, in the other, bolster the sensitivity of oxygen sensors essential in confined settings, from [...]]]>

Two nanoscale devices recently reported by University of Pittsburgh researchers in two separate journals harness the potential of carbon nanomaterials to enhance technologies for drug or imaging agent delivery and energy storage systems, in one case, and, in the other, bolster the sensitivity of oxygen sensors essential in confined settings, from mines to spacecrafts.

In a report published online by Advanced Materials Aug. 12, a team led by chemistry professors Alexander Star and Stéphane Petoud in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences describe the creation of nanosized capsules that are universally compatible with a range of substances, particularly related to medicine and energy. When applied to medicine, the tiny vessels can potentially carry a sizable “cargo” of anticancer drugs or medical-imaging agents, and could be steered via antibodies and biological molecules to specific locations within the human body. Energy applications include the storage of lithium and hydrogen in batteries and fuel cells. Pitt graduate chemistry student Brett Allen was the paper’s lead author. The project also included chemistry graduate student Chad Shade and Adrienne Yingling, now a graduate of Pitt’s PhD chemistry program.

In a separate paper appearing online in Nature Chemistry Aug. 16, another team headed by Star and Petoud revealed the development of a highly sensitive, fluorescent oxygen sensor that can detect minute amounts of the gas. Oxygen detectors are important safety devices in mines, aircraft, submarines, and other confined spaces, the researchers note. The sensor consists of carbon nanotubes coated with a luminescent compound incorporating europium, a reactive metal found in fluorescent bulbs, television/computer screens, and lasers, among other applications.

The researchers gauged oxygen levels by measuring the intensity of its glow when exposed to ultraviolent light and the tubes’ change in electrical conductance. The tubes demonstrated sensitivity to oxygen concentrations as low as 5 percent (normal atmospheric concentration is around 20 percent) with the team calculating that it can indicate a level as low as 0.4 percent, and they were unaffected by other atmospheric gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The second paper was authored by Shade and Pitt chemistry graduate students Douglas Kauffman and Hyounsoo Uh.

For both technologies, the Pitt teams worked with carbon nanomaterials to create enhanced versions of existing technologies. For instance, the oxygen sensor combines the small scale of carbon nanotubes—they are one-atom thick rolls of graphite 100,000 times smaller than a human hair—with the reactivity of the europium compound coating to produce a platform for low-cost, room-temperature detectors that are notably sensitive to oxygen but less complicated than existing sensors, the researchers write in Nature Chemistry.

Regarding the nanocapsules described in Advanced Materials, existing technologies are typically constructed of polymers that are permeable like a sponge and can result in leakage, Star explained. Additionally, each capsule must be tailored to its particular cargo, he said. The Pitt version employs graphite carbon shells bonded with glutaraldehyde—a common biological adhesive—creating a hollow storage space. More importantly, the graphite shells are chemically inactive and are thus compatible with any cargo substance without costly and time-consuming chemical preparation, Star said.

“For decades, researchers have been searching for an optimal vessel for storing and transporting a variety of cargo to specified locations,” Star said. “Our devices have the potential to be universal delivery vehicles for a range of materials. Our next steps will focus on controlling how and when the nanocapsules open by using different stimuli such as pH, light, and chemical agents.”

To illustrate the capsules’ adaptability, the team loaded them with a luminescent imaging agent developed in Petoud’s lab made of zinc sulfide semiconductor nanocrystals incorporating terbium, a metal chemically similar to europium. Once in the body, the substance would emit a unique light that allows easier detection and a better image, Petoud said. But the inorganic nanocrystals have to be prepared before being introduced to a biological environment such as the body and is difficult and time-consuming. The graphite nanocapsules, however, could hold and transport the solution with no preparation.

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A lexicon would tell you that radiology is a branch of medicine, which makes use of radiation in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. X rays, gamma rays, ultrasound waves, radioactive isotopes and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are commonly used for medical imaging these days. Radiology Products are especially useful in the treatment of [...]]]>

A lexicon would tell you that radiology is a branch of medicine, which makes use of radiation in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. X rays, gamma rays, ultrasound waves, radioactive isotopes and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are commonly used for medical imaging these days. Radiology Products are especially useful in the treatment of diseases related to brain and heart apart from conditions like cancer.

Radiology imaging is used to create images of the body and its various organs for effective diagnosis and treatment. The high resolution images can accurately define the health condition of the internal organs and its functioning. With the advent of various Radiology Software packages, the quality of imaging has undergone great development in the recent past.

Radiology is a vital wing in all super speciality hospitals world wide and there is a tremendous demand for qualified radiologists. Many nations resort to outsourcing radiologists to meet the huge gap between demand and supply of medical personnel who are proficient in handling the latest radiology products and radiology software.

Radiology books and radiology communities help the professionals to keep their information up to date. There are also virtual radiology communities, which offer a meeting point for the radiologists to exchange ideas and information about the latest innovations and techniques. There are many useful books on radiology including medical publications, encyclopaedias, reference guides and radiology atlases, which bring to you the latest treatment methods like interventional radiology and mammography among others. Many world famous radiologists and doctors contribute informative radiology articles, which highlight the path breaking inventions in radiology from all over the world.

If you are on the look out for an interesting and fulfilling career, radiology would be a great option. The ever increasing demand for qualified hands would put you on a hot seat always. Easy working hours and an attractive package are some of the other frills that are tagged with this respectful job. Apart from all these you get to know the latest happenings and developments in radiology- undeniably one of the fastest growing branches in modern medicine. Radiology indeed holds the key for a disease free world.

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