Over the last decade, hybrid imaging has become a standard of care in radiology, cardiology, nuclear medicine and oncology. Integrated scanning systems offer a number of advantages for physicians and patients.

 A panel of seven clinical experts and public policy leaders offer insight on personalized medicine, technology, biomarkers and the DRA.

PET/CT has come a long way since Time magazine awarded the scanner one of its Medical Inventions of the Year award in December 2000. Published literature since 1996 has established strong evidence for the advantages of PET/CT over PET and CT alone for characterizing lesions as malignant or benign, and for staging, restaging and therapy monitoring of cancer. In addition, emerging applications include imaging of cardiovascular diseases and infection.

PET/CT has come a long way since Time magazine awarded the scanner one of its Medical Inventions of the Year award in December 2000.

Numerous clinical studies have compellingly demonstrated that FDG-PET generally outperforms not only individual diagnostic tests, but also a combination of tests to diagnose and stage many cancers. Physicians and patients need to be informed.

Dynamic contrast agent enhanced MRI (DCE MRI) is a fairly well-established technique that was first introduced in the early 1990s. Used in the pharmaceutical and clinical research environments, the post-processing algorithm evaluates dynamic images to measure contrast agent uptake in target tissue. 

Independent of one another, CT and PET have played important roles in the identification and staging of sarcomas. CTs anatomic capabilities have helped physicians locate sarcomas in patients, while PETs functional capabilities have assisted in monitoring treatment, grading sarcoma, separating benign from malignant masses, selecting biopsy sites, and assessing the extent of sarcomas.

United Healthcare’s decision to require MRI accreditation after March 1, 2008, initiated a trend among payers that is likely to gain steam. It has also sent hospitals and freestanding imaging centers scrambling to secure MRI accreditation from the American College of Radiology, which has accredited over to 5,000 MRI units since beginning its MRI