Inefficient imaging: Providers overutilize resources when treating women with breast pain

Breast pain impacts more than half of all women and affects the quality of life of 41 percent of women. Healthcare resources are overutilized to treat these patients, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology, suggesting imaging providers should pay closer attention to recommended protocols and referring physicians may need additional education.

Nearly one-third of integrated interventional radiology residency programs lack a web presence, researchers reported in the American Journal of Roentgenology this month—and they could be missing out on recruiting the next generation of radiologists.

Machine learning techniques perform well when tasked with predicting malignancy in breast lesions identified during breast cone-beam CT (CBCT) exams, according to a new study from German researchers published by the American Journal of Roentgenology. One technique, back propagation neural networks (BPN), outperformed two radiologists.

Adopting a nonrandom peer review process—and abandoning the ACR’s widely accepted RADPEER approach—could identify far more diagnostic errors in imaging studies and afford radiologists an opportunity to learn from theirs and their peers’ mistakes, researchers suggest in the current edition of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

Lung cancer rates among white and Hispanic women born since the 1960s are on the rise, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Why these rates are climbing faster among women than men, however, remains unclear.

It might not be the majority of hospitals’ standard routine, but including a patient’s head during routine body imaging with FDG PET/MRI could detect far more brain abnormalities than traditional practice, according to research published in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Less than a month after British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that up to 270 women may have died of breast cancer after a technical error neglected to send 450,000 invites for final routine mammograms, one doctor is warning the number of failed invites may have been closer to 500,000, The Independent reports.

When it comes to achieving price transparency for patients who are intent on minimizing out-of-pocket pain for medical services, radiology practices face a stark choice: Innovate or perish.