New research published in the British Medical Journal suggests that increasing high resolution imaging scans are contributing to more accidentally discovered abnormalities, or "incidentalomas," which are unrelated to a patient's diagnosis and are often benign.

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) found that follow-up imaging for women with non-metastatic breast cancer strongly varies across the U.S. Differences are thought to be caused by varying common clinical practices implemented by multiple physician groups and hospitals.

The addition of shear-wave elastography to conventional breast ultrasound improves the characterization of low-suspicion masses, according to research published in Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging this month, possibly reducing the need for long-term follow-up and unnecessary biopsies in scores of women. 

Evelina London Children's Hospital in the U.K. recently invested in three ultrasound scanners that can detect heart defects and other abnormalities in fetuses as early as 12 weeks old, according to an article published July 13 by The Standard.

Multiparametric MRI can be a valuable tool for visualizing prostate changes and monitoring patients after MRI-guided focal laser ablation (FLA), according to a July 10 American Journal of Roentgenology study.

Researchers have shown that machine learning can identify if a patient has schizophrenia by analyzing an MRI of their brain, according to a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry.

"The inclusion of women in defined hormonal states in dosimetry studies and recommending that both clinical and research nuclear medicine procedure on young women be performed in the least susceptible phase of the menstrual cycle could improve the safety and the diagnostic accuracy of nuclear medicine procedures in women," wrote Anat Biegon, PhD, in a recent Radiology editorial

Real-time breast ultrasound following second-opinion reinterpretation of an original study leads to a change in the clinical management of nearly 33 percent of patients, researchers report in the current edition of Clinical Imaging. It also detects additional cancers in 5 percent of women.