Amazon has reportedly shelved plans to sell and distribute pharmaceuticals to hospitals and health systems through its Amazon Business unit, a move which analysts said illustrates the difficulty outside companies face in disrupting the existing healthcare supply chain.

On Friday, April 13, the FDA approved the latest version of the SOMATOM Force, a dual source CT system from Siemens Healthineers.

Prices across the healthcare sector rose 2.2 percent year-over-year in March 2018, the highest annual growth rate recorded by Altarum since January 2012, with the report warning rapid price growth is likely to continue.

The Rush hospital system based in Chicago has ended plans to acquire Little Company of Mary of Evergreen Park, Illinois, which would’ve merged 12 facilities with Rush University Medical Center and its 2,500-student health sciences college.

The report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) examined claims for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) from 2009 to 2015 covered by individual market, employer-sponsored or Medicare Advantage plans. It found total spending per MS patient rose from around $23,900 to $39,628 by 2015. During the same time period, the share of spending spent towards injectable and oral disease modifying therapies (DMTs) rose from 39 percent to 53 percent.

Thoroughbred racing’s Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) updated its concussion protocol for jockeys on April 6, requiring a medical professional to be onsite to diagnose such injuries.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signed the state’s breast density reporting legislation into law. Providers that perform mammography are now required to send a notice to patients when it is determined they have dense breast tissue.

Mammography interpreted by two radiologists instead of one can lead to reduced recall rates and improved cancer detection, according to a new study published in Radiology. However, the authors noted, any additional cancers detected require “careful consideration” as they may be smaller, less likely to be invasive or less likely to have involved nodes.