Week in Review | June 9, 2018

Combining traditional digital mammography with tomosynthesis detects 90 percent more breast cancers than mammography alone, Italian researchers reported in Radiology this month—but the jury is still out on whether the benefits of combining screenings outweigh any clinical risks. 

Medicare beneficiaries who undergo mammography are much more likely to utilize other preventive health services such as cervical cancer screening or osteoporosis screening, according to a new study published by Radiology.

A study in the latest edition of Research Policy, looking at the 2.3 percent excise tax imposed on medical devices in 2013, found it significantly reduced research and development investment, sales revenue, gross margins and earnings.

Though they might not be a hospital’s go-to choice when it comes to community engagement, radiation oncologists are seeing increasing opportunities to engage with the public and promote cancer education.

Could using a non-conventional mouse help make workstations more efficient? When a group of radiologists gave a programmable, 13-button mouse a two-day test run, many reported that they liked using it more than their previous mouse, according to a new study published by the Journal of Digital Imaging.

Radiology education has made substantial progress since its debut in the medical sphere, but students and faculty alike continue to suffer from communication barriers, high burnout risks and a lack of defined roles in the classroom, a group of administrators wrote in a compiled advice column for the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

Radiology professionals working on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can learn a lot from studying self-driving vehicles, according to a new commentary published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

The FDA has proposed reclassifying medical image analyzers used in mammography for breast cancer, ultrasound for breast lesions, x-ray for lung nodules and x-ray for dental caries as class II medical devices instead of class III.

The majority of women with early-stage breast cancer and a mid-range score on a 21-tumor gene expression test see no added benefit from undergoing chemotherapy alongside hormone therapy during treatment, researchers reported this month at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

In an era where half of U.S. physicians are, in some way, professionally burned out, medical program directors and administrators are looking for ways to prevent the current generation of medical students from meeting a similar fate—and they’re finding the problem might be rooted in education.

Less than a week after President Donald Trump confirmed plans to proceed with tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese imports, the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) has said it’s backing a bipartisan letter urging U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to exempt nearly $3 billion worth of medical device products from Section 301 tariffs.