The older a surgeon gets, the lower the patient mortality rate, with female surgeons in their 50s having the lowest rates overall, according to research led by Yusuke Tsugawa, MD, MPH, PhD, assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Leapfrog Group’s 2018 Hospital Safety Grades found that a handful of facilities have made major strides in reducing infection rates and deaths due to error. Of the 2,500 hospitals examined, 89 receiving an A this year had previously been rated as a D or F.

Navigation programs aimed at breast and colorectal cancer patients could provide an enduring link to the healthcare system while boosting screening rates—but the added expenses of such a program mean clinicians will likely need to gear that care toward a select few, research published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology suggests.

Low-risk breast cancer patients who opt for accelerated partial breast irradiation—a one-week alternative to traditional whole-breast radiotherapy—see the same quality of life as women who undergo conventional treatment, researchers reported at this year’s European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) Congress.

Teaching hospitals that rack up dozens of safety violations from CMS are also the training ground for the next generation of physicians, which could increase the risk of those young doctors picking up habits that result in unsafe care or burning themselves out and leaving the profession.

CT colonography (CTC) is an effective, efficient test for senior-age patients with and without symptoms of colorectal cancer (CRC), according to a new study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Designed to meet the needs of office-based X-ray imaging, such as orthopedic groups, family practices and urgent care centers, Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. introduced the KDR Primary Digital Radiography System at the American Association of Orthopedic Executives (AAOE) 2018 Annual Conference.

Diagnosing the source of lower back pain is notoriously difficult for physicians—current methods have been criticized as ineffective, inaccurate and unreliable—but a combined decision-making approach could help identify the problem with greater certainty and less fuss, researchers wrote in PLOS ONE this month.