Two companies serving medical imagers just had products cleared for marketing in the U.S.

Ron Blankstein, MD, associate director of the cardiovascular imaging program and director of the cardiac computed tomography program for Brigham and Women's Hospital, was a co-author on the ACC 2021 Chest Pain Guidelines, which now lists coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA or CTA) as a 1A level recommendation for frontline imaging. 

Experts involved in the research believe their findings could help to guide providers in making treatment decisions. 

Multiple areas of architectural distortion visualized on digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) exams are likely to produce high-risk pathology results. 

Undergraduate medical school students should be taught to visualize fluid-filled cavities with ultrasound and how to use ultrasound to guide a needle safely into a fluid-filled cavity, sonography experts advise in an authoritative new set of educational recommendations. 

"Ultimately, long-term studies are vital to parse out whether the absence of iodinated contrast media greatly affected patient outcomes or if we have been overdependent on ICM unnecessarily.” 

The new guidelines put emphasis on the age at which average-risk women should begin annual screening and breast assessments.

Mike Shapiro, DO, MD, director of the Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at Wake Forest University, discusses the current guidelines for computed tomography (CT) calcium scoring as a screening test to assess heart attack risk.