Radiation in medicine: Origins, risks and aspirations.

The use of radiation in medicine is now pervasive and routine. From their crude beginnings 100 years ago, diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation therapy have all evolved into advanced techniques, and are regarded as essential tools across all branches and specialties of medicine. The inherent properties of ionizing radiation provide many benefits, but can also cause potential harm. Its use within medical practice thus involves an informed judgment regarding the risk/benefit ratio. This judgment requires not only medical knowledge, but also an understanding of radiation itself. This work provides a global perspective on radiation risks, exposure and mitigation strategies

Hubble Systems Optimize Hospital Schedules

Don Rosenthal, a former Ames Research Center computer scientist who helped design the Hubble Space Telescope's scheduling software, co-founded Allocade Inc. of Menlo Park, California, in 2004. Allocade's OnCue software helps hospitals reclaim unused capacity and optimize constantly changing schedules for imaging procedures. After starting to use the software, one medical center soon reported noticeable improvements in efficiency, including a 12 percent increase in procedure volume, 35 percent reduction in staff overtime, and significant reductions in backlog and technician phone time. Allocade now offers versions for outpatient and inpatient magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, interventional radiology, nuclear medicine, Positron Emission Tomography (PET), radiography, radiography-fluoroscopy, and mammography

Medical physics aspects of cancer care in the Asia Pacific region

Medical physics plays an essential role in modern medicine. This is particularly evident in cancer care where medical physicists are involved in radiotherapy treatment planning and quality assurance as well as in imaging and radiation protection. Due to the large variety of tasks and interests, medical physics is often subdivided into specialties such as radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation oncology medical physics. However, even within their specialty, the role of radiation oncology medical physicists (ROMPs) is diverse and varies between different societies. Therefore, a questionnaire was sent to leading medical physicists in most countries/areas in the Asia/Pacific region to determine the education, role and status of medical physicists

Imaging diagnostics and pathology in sars-cov-2-related diseases

In December 2019, physicians reported numerous patients showing pneumonia of unknown origin in the Chinese region of Wuhan. Following the spreading of the infection over the world, The World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 declared the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak a global pandemic. The scientific community is exerting an extraordinary effort to elucidate all aspects related to SARS-CoV-2, such as the structure, ultrastructure, invasion mechanisms, replication mechanisms, or drugs for treatment, mainly through in vitro studies. Thus, the clinical in vivo data can provide a test bench for new discoveries in the field of SARS-CoV-2, finding new solutions to fight the current pandemic. During this dramatic situation, the normal scientific protocols for the development of new diagnostic procedures or drugs are frequently not completely applied in order to speed up these processes. In this context, interdisciplinarity is fundamental. Specifically, a great contribution can be provided by the association and interpretation of data derived from medical disciplines based on the study of images, such as radiology, nuclear medicine, and pathology. Therefore, here, we highlighted the most recent histopathological and imaging data concerning the SARS-CoV-2 infection in lung and other human organs such as the kidney, heart, and vascular system. In addition, we evaluated the possible matches among data of radiology, nuclear medicine, and pathology departments in order to support the intense scientific work to address the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In this regard, the development of artificial intelligence algorithms that are capable of correlating these clinical data with the new scientific discoveries concerning SARS-CoV-2 might be the keystone to get out of the pandemic

Metastatic lymph nodes in the neck of patients with T1 and T2 squamous cell carcinoma of the lower lip detected with lymphoscintigraphy

Aims and backgroundThe aim of our research was to use lymphoscintigraphy as a main method to confirm and detect lymph nodes in the neck, in patients with squamos cell carcinoma of lower lip which were clinically T1, T2 and N0, and to justify the use of selective neck dissection in those patients. MethodsFrom April 2010 to January 2011, 31 patients with T1, T2 and N0 SCC of the lower lip were admitted to our center. To detect sentinel lymph nodes, we performed lymphoscintigraphy (LSG). LSG was performed on the day of surgery after intradermal injection of 37 Mbq of Tc99m-Sn-colloid/ml at four peritumoral sites. The sentinel lymph nodes were then extirpated and sent for biopsy. Results Among the 31 patients, three (9.7%) were female and 28 (90.3%) were male. LSG detected sentinel nodes in the neck in 21 (67.7%) of the patients. Of these, 10 (47.6%) had a positive sentinel node biopsy. Of all 31 patients enrolled in the study, occult metastases were found in 10 (32.3%).  Conclusions Our results indicate that, of the methods used to detect positive lymph nodes, the most accurate is LSG. The results also suggest that further study is needed to optimize the treatment protocol in patients with SCC of the lower lip, especially in those with T2 lesions.

Imaging in the Lion City: Singapore Radiology Country Report

Singapore is a small tropical island city-state with limited natural resources that has achieved remarkable healthcare outcomes through effective long-term planning and judicious investment in human resources and technology. A full-range of medical imaging services is available in the country, with integrated care delivered to patients through a network of both government and private hospitals. Training in diagnostic radiology, interventional radiology, nuclear medicine and diagnostic radiography continue to evolve in Singapore, with an aim to further increase the range of subspecialty medical imaging services available and address projected challenges for the healthcare system in the future, such as an aging population. Continued government investment in technology and biomedical imaging is expected to further expand the scope and depth of medical imaging services in the future

Focal Spot, Fall 1974

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1009/thumbnail.jp

Scientometric analysis of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging publications of Iran in the Web of Science and Scopus Databases

     Scientometric analysis should be given great heed in university and research centers for various research and educational reasons. This study aimed to carry out a scientometirc analysis of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging articles authored by Iranian researchers and published in journals indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases from 2001 to 2016. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study in which as many as 3335 documents authored by Iranian researchers were identified on the two citation databases using field-specific keywords. HistCite™, MS Excel and VOSviewer™ were used to analyze the data. The study discovered that in terms of publications in both citation databases, Iran is almost among the top 30 countries in quantitative and qualitative studies. Iran's contribution was, however, very low in both web of Science (0.32%) and Scopus (0.52%). It was found that “Iranian Journal of Radiation Research” and “Iranian Journal of Radiology” are indexed in both databases; Tehran University of Medical Sciences and University of Tehran are also the most contributing institutions in the databases. According to the findings of the study, it is recommended that Iranian researchers increase their scientific cooperation with researchers from other leading countries in these fields including the United States, Japan and Germany to gain a better quantity and quality of publications