Health Care Workers, Medical Imaging / 21.11.2024

Radiography graduates can explore many career possibilities within healthcare. By using imaging technology for the diagnosis and treatment of patients, these professionals provide essential healthcare support services. From working in hospitals to research careers or advanced specializations, radiography provides many exciting career options.  Graduates in radiography programs can tailor their career decisions based on interests or expertise gained during graduate training. This article discusses some key career pathways available for graduates who have completed a comprehensive radiography program, with each offering its own set of responsibilities and professional growth potentials. Continue reading below for more details. (more…)
Medical Imaging, Technology / 27.06.2024

Endoscopy, a crucial diagnostic and therapeutic tool in modern medicine, is constantly evolving. Advancements in technology are set to revolutionise how endoscopic procedures are performed, enhancing their accuracy, safety, and efficacy. Here, we explore the emerging trends and innovations shaping the future of endoscopy.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

One of the most promising developments in endoscopy is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These technologies enhance diagnostic capabilities by providing real-time image analysis, which helps in the identification of abnormalities, polyps, and early signs of cancer with unprecedented accuracy. Machine learning algorithms can also predict patient outcomes and suggest personalised treatment plans based on vast amounts of historical data, improving overall patient care.

Miniaturisation and Micro-Robotics

The trend towards miniaturisation is leading to the development of swallowable capsules equipped with tiny cameras. These capsules can capture high-quality images of the gastrointestinal tract as they travel through it, offering a less invasive alternative to traditional endoscopy. Additionally, micro-robotic devices are being developed to navigate and perform procedures within the body with high precision, reducing the need for larger incisions and enhancing recovery times. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cannabis, Medical Imaging, Pulmonary Disease / 10.12.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jessie Kang, MD, FRCPC Assistant professor Department of Diagnostic Radiology Faculty of Medicine Dalhousie University   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Marijuana is the most widely used illicit psychoactive substance in the world.
  • Use has increased in Canada since legalization of non-medical marijuana in 2018.
  • It is commonly believed that smoking marijuana is not harmful to the lungs. There is an abundance of established research that identifies the harms of cigarette smoking. In contrast, very little is known about the effects of marijuana smoking, and even less research has been done on the combined effects of smoking marijuana and cigarettes.
To determine the effects of marijuana and cigarette smoking, we examined the chest CT images of four patient groups: non-smokers, cigarette smokers, marijuana smokers, and combined marijuana and cigarette smokers. Marijuana smokers included in the study had smoked marijuana at least four times a month for two years. Patients who ingested marijuana via edibles or oral drops were excluded from the study. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Lancet, Medical Imaging, Technology / 24.08.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Daiju Ueda Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Graduate School of Medicine Osaka Metropolitan University Osaka, Japan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response:  We were inspired by the potential of chest radiography as a biomarker for aging. Previous research had utilized chest radiographs for age estimation, but these studies often involved cohorts with diseases. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Biomarkers, JAMA, MRI / 22.05.2023

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ruben Smith MD, PhD Associate professor at Clinical Memory Research Division of Neurology Lund University   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Since a few years it has become possible to visualize tau pathology in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) using positron emission tomography (PET). The tau-PET radiotracer Flortaucipir (Tauvid) was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as an AD diagnostic tool. Since PET imaging is costly and exposes the patient to radioactivity we wanted to study the added clinical value of tau-PET in the diagnostic work-up of patients with cognitive symptoms, before widespread implementation in clinical practice. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Mammograms / 07.12.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Wendie Berg, MD, PhD, FACR Professor of Radiology University of Pittsburgh MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Mammography misses many cancers in women with a personal history of breast cancer (PHBC). MRI improves early detection of cancer in women with PHBC and the American College of Radiology recommends adding MRI every year for women with PHBC and dense breasts or diagnosis by age 50 but not every woman can tolerate MRI. Contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) appears to be a good alternative to MRI.  Our study examined performance of CEM after tomosynthesis in women with PHBC.  We first trained our radiologists in CEM (Berg WA et al JBI 2021) and two radiologists interpreted both tomosynthesis and CEM on every participant. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, JAMA, Lancet, Lung Cancer, Medical Imaging, Technology / 07.09.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Raymond H. Mak, MD Radiation Oncology Disease Center Leader for Thoracic Oncology Director of Patient Safety and QualityDirector of Clinical Innovation Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School Cancer - Radiation Oncology, Radiation Oncology Department of Radiation Oncology Brigham and Women's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What is the algorithm detecting? Response: Lung cancer, the most common cancer worldwide is highly lethal, but can be treated and cured in some cases with radiation therapy.  Nearly half of lung cancer patients will eventually require some form of radiation therapy, but the planning for a course of radiation therapy currently entails manual, time-consuming, and resource-intensive work by highly trained physicians to segment (target) the cancerous tumors in the lungs and adjacent lymph nodes on three-dimensional images (CT scans). Prior studies have shown substantial variation in how expert clinicians delineate these targets, which can negatively impact outcomes and there is a projected shortage of skilled medical staff to perform these tasks worldwide as cancer rates increase. To address this critical gap, our team developed deep learning algorithms that can automatically target lung cancer in the lungs and adjacent lymph nodes from CT scans that are used for radiation therapy planning, and can be deployed in seconds. We trained these artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms using expert-segmented targets from over 700 cases and validated the performance in over 1300 patients in external datasets (including publicly available data from a national trial), benchmarked its performance against expert clinicians, and then further validated the clinical usefulness of the algorithm in human-AI collaboration experiments that measured accuracy, task speed, and end-user satisfaction. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, JAMA, Mammograms, Medical Imaging, UCSF / 15.06.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Karla Kerlikowske, MD. Professor, Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology/Biostatistics, Cancer Center Program Membership. Breast Oncology UCSF MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?  Response: Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) was developed with the expectation it would improve detection of breast cancer in women with dense breasts and decrease false-positive results. DBT is now available at most breast screening centers. (more…)
Author Interviews, Autism, Medical Imaging / 02.04.2022

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alpen ORTUĞ, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow​ Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Radiology Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging Boston, MA   MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study?  What are the main findings? Response: Finding the earliest diagnosis possible for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is one of the main goals for researchers studying ASD. This study aimed to investigate the critical abnormalities in prenatal brain development in ASD using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We hypothesized that volumetric analyses of brain segmentations are useful to identify such abnormalities before birth. We have retrospectively analyzed fetal MRI based on the knowledge that the same individuals were later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. We have evaluated developmental abnormalities in brain structures of prospective ASD fetuses using volumetric segmentation. The current study is still preliminary, but the ‘insula’ of the brain showed statistically significant volumetric enlargement in prospective ASD patients, compared to the other three control groups.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Medical Imaging, Technology / 13.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ryan C. Gibbons, MD, FAAEM, FACEP Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine Director of the Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship Associate Director of the Division of Emergency Ultrasound Department of Emergency Medicine Director of Ultrasound in Medical Education Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?  How was the gift funded? Butterfly needle visualizatioResponse: Point-of-care ultrasound is one of the most significant advances in bedside patient care, and its use is expanding across nearly all fields of medicine. In order to best prepare medical students for residency and beyond, it is imperative to begin POCUS training as early as possible. At the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, we introduced POCUS education over a decade ago and have expanded it since then. By providing each student with a Butterfly iQ device, we can augment our curriculum significantly. In addition to our robust pre-clinical sessions, now we will expand into the clinical years highlighting the utility of POCUS with actual patients. This gift was made possible by the incredible generosity of Dr. Ronald Salvitti, MD ’63.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Medical Imaging, Neurological Disorders / 02.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Ferguson, PhD Instructor in Neurology | Harvard Medical School Lecturer on Neurospirituality | Harvard Divinity School Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics Brigham and Women’s Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over 80% of the global population consider themselves religious with even more identifying as spiritual, but the neural substrates of spirituality and religiosity remain unresolved. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Where is this circuit located in the brain? What other effects does this circuit control or influence? Response: We found that brain lesions associated with self-reported spirituality map to a human brain circuit centered on the periaqueductal grey. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, CT Scanning, Heart Disease, JACC, Statins / 14.01.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prasanna Venkataraman MBBS Thomas H. Marwick MBBS, PhD Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute Monash University, Melbourne Melbourne, Australia   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Coronary artery calcium score (CAC) quantifies coronary calcium as determined by computed tomography and is a good surrogate marker for overall coronary plaque burden. It can help to reclassify patients at intermediate risk – many of whom are actually at low risk and can be reassured. Conversely, the finding of coronary calcium can also motivate patients (and their clinicians) to more aggressively control their cardiovascular risk factors. This is particularly problematic in those with a family history of premature coronary artery disease, where standard risk prediction tools are less accurate. However, CT CAC does not routinely attract third party payer support limiting its access and utilisation.
  • We screened 1084 participants who have a family history of premature coronary disease and a 10-year Pooled cohort Equation (PCE) cardiovascular risk >2% with CAC. We then assessed the cost-effectiveness of commencing statins in those with any coronary calcium compared to a strategy of no CAC testing and commencing statins if their PCE risk was ≥7.5% consistent with current guidelines. 
(more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, CT Scanning, Johns Hopkins, Nature / 12.12.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nilanjan Chatterjee, PhD Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Departments of Biostatistics and Epidemiology Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Calculation of risks or severe COVID-19 disease and mortality for individuals in the general population can help to prioritize prevention efforts, such as early vaccination. We developed a model to estimate risks for COVID-19 mortality for currently uninflected individuals based on sociodemographic factors, pre-existing conditions and local pandemic intensity.  The model captures factors associated with both risk of infection and complications after infection. The model was developed using information from a large UK based cohort study called OpenSAFELY, and was adapted to the US population based on information on mortality rate associated with age and race/ethnicity available through CDC.  The model also utilizes information on state level projected death rates from pandemic forecasting models.  (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Medical Imaging, Mental Health Research / 01.12.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Maria Vittoria Spampinato, MD Neuroradiology Division Director Department of Radiology and Radiological Science Medical University of South Carolina Charleston, SC 29425-3230 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents a major public health crisis worldwide. More than 5 million people currently have AD in the United States. AD is a slowly progressing neurodegenerative brain disorder with a long preclinical phase. Many people with AD first suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a decline in cognitive abilities like memory and thinking skills that is greater than that associated with normal aging. A person with MCI is at an increased risk of developing AD or another dementia, although some individuals with MCI remain cognitively stable or improve. Anxiety is frequently observed in individuals with MCI. The reported prevalence of anxiety in MCI patients varies between 10 and 50%.  In this study we evaluated a cohort of 339 individuals with MCI participating in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative study (ADNI2). During the five years of study participation, 72 patients experienced cognitive decline and were diagnosed with AD. We did not find difference in age, gender and education among patients with and without AD conversion. Patients who progressed had greater atrophy of the hippocampi and entorhinal cortex on their MRI scan, as expected (hippocampal atrophy is often used as a marker of neurodegeneration in AD), as well as greater prevalence of APOE4 is the strongest known genetic risk factor for AD.   Patients who progressed to Alzheimer’s disease also had greater severity of anxiety during the study, as measured using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire. Next we determined the effect of the MRI findings (hippocampal and entorhinal cortex atrophy), of the genetic risk factor (APOE4) and of the severity of anxiety on the time to progression to AD. We found that higher levels of anxiety were associated with faster progression from MCI to AD, independently of whether they had a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease or brain volume loss. We still need to understand better the association between anxiety disorders and cognitive decline. We do not know whether increased levels of anxiety are a consequence of cognitive decline or if anxiety exacerbates to cognitive decline. If we were able to find in the future that anxiety is actually contributing to cognitive decline, then we should more aggressively screen for anxiety disorders in the elderly population.  (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, Medical Imaging / 27.08.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bruce G. Haffty, MD FACR FASTRO FASCO Associate Vice Chancellor Cancer Programs Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences Professor and Chair, Dept. Radiation Oncology Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson and New Jersey Medical Schools Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? : What are the main findings? Response: That at peak times of COVID in NJ, in a tertiary care hospital with lots of COVID patients, where cancer patients still need to get treated, there was no evidence of surface COVID contamination, which should be reassuring to patients requiring radiation treatment in a busy hospital with a high in patient population of COVID patients. It should be noted that patients and staff were routinely mask wearing, observing social distancing and routinely hand washing as well as screening patients as they came in to the department with temperature checks and questions regarding symptoms. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, Heart Disease, JAMA, MRI / 28.07.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Valentina Puntmann, MD, PhD, FRCP Deputy Head Goethe CVI Fellowship Programme Lead Consultant Physician, Cardiologist and Clinical Pharmacologist Institute for Experimental and Translational Cardiovascular Imaging DZHK Centre for Cardiovascular Imaging - Goethe CVI Department of Cardiology, Division of Internal Medicine University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Patients who recently recovered from COVID19 have been identified through the testing centre and invited to be screened for cardiac involvement with MRI. Importantly, they have not come to us because of having heart problems. In fact, none of them thought that they had had anything wrong with the heart.  They were mostly healthy, sporty and well prior to their illness. A considerable proportion had been infected while on skiing vacations. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Mammograms / 30.06.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel Farber, MPH School of Public Health Faculty of Medicine and Health University of Sydney New South Wales, Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Most breast screening programs worldwide have replaced the use of film mammography with digital mammography. While digital mammography provides significant technical and practical advantages over film mammography in the provision of population screening programs, the effect of this move on health outcomes remained unclear. An increase in screen detected cancer rates is only beneficial if the additional cancers detected would have otherwise presented at a later stage and caused morbidity and premature mortality. An indirect measure of this is an observed decrease in interval cancer rates. Interval cancers are cancers that are diagnosed after a woman has a negative screening result and before her subsequent scheduled screening. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, CT Scanning, Global Health, Medical Imaging / 13.03.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Soheil Kooraki  MSR MS, MD on behalf of Dr. Ali Gholamrezanezhad MD and co-authors Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles Los Angeles, California MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: COVID19 is a novel strain of the coronavirus family causing pneumonia. Two similar strains were discovered in 2003 and 2012 to cause the so-called SARS and MERS outbreaks, respectively. Radiologists need to be prepared for the escalating incidence of COVID-19. We reviewed the literature to extract the epidemiologic and imaging features of SARS and MERS in comparison with known imaging features of COVID-19 pneumonia to have a better understanding of the imaging features of the COVID19 pneumonia in acute and post-recovery stages. (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cancer Research, Mammograms / 25.02.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Xabier Garcia-De-Albeniz MD PhD Research Associate Department of Epidemiology Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Mongan Institute for Health Policy Massachusetts General Hospital  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The goal of breast cancer screening is to reduce deaths from breast cancer by finding breast cancer at early, more treatable stages. The main way to screen for breast cancer is periodic mammography, which is an x-ray of the breast that can show tumors before they are large enough to feel. High-quality studies called clinical trials have shown that screening women in their 50s and 60s decreases breast cancer deaths. However, the point at which women can safely stop screening because it no longer decreases breast cancer deaths has not been studied. More than half of women in the United States continue screening mammography after age 75 years.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, CT Scanning, Lung Cancer / 04.02.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carlijn M. van der Aalst, Ph.D. MPH Department of Public Health Erasmus MC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among both men and women. About 70% of patients with lung cancer are diagnosed with advanced disease, which results in only 15% surviving five years. About 70% of patients with lung cancer are diagnosed with advanced disease, a stage in which cure is problematic. This results in only 15% surviving five years. Although quit smoking is most effective in preventing lung cancer, about half of all lung cancers are currently diagnosed in former smokers, who remain at high risk for decades after quitting smoking. The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST; U.S.) reported a 20% lung cancer-related mortality reduction and a 6.7% reduction in all-cause mortality for CT screening compared with chest radiography screening for lung cancer in 53,454 enrolled subjects at high risk for lung cancer.1 As a consequence, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) requested an independent review and a modelling study. Based on these NLST data, an efficient strategy with a reasonable harm-benefit ratio could be established, resulting in the recommendation to annually screen persons aged 55-80 with ≥30 pack-years of smoking history, who currently smoke or quit smoking <15 years ago. However, data of only one trial provides limited evidence and more trial data are needed. NELSON is the second largest lung cancer screening trial that is adequately designed to provide the evidence that is needed to conclude whether CT screening can reduce lung cancer mortality. (more…)
Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Brain Injury, Medical Imaging, UCSF / 06.01.2020

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: William G. Mantyh, MD Clinical Fellow, UCSF Memory and Aging Center Weill Institute for Neurosciences UCSF MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Similar to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementing illnesses, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative condition associated with abnormally folded tau protein in the brain. CTE is thought to be caused by exposure to repetitive head trauma, and recently has been the subject of intense media coverage given the frequency of CTE found in brains of deceased former American professional football players. CTE is almost impossible to confidently diagnose during life as the symptoms are diverse and vary from patient-to-patient. Symptoms can include impairments in memory, multi-tasking, behavioral/mood regulation, and movement. As there are no blood, imaging, or other tests for this disease, one active area of research is developing a test to help doctors diagnose this condition. As tau tangles in CTE are similar in many respects to those in Alzheimer’s disease, there was hope that PET tracers that detect tau in AD might also work in CTE. Flortaucipir (FTP) is probably the most widely used tau tracer in AD. Recent work has reported some signal from FTP-PET in symptomatic former NFL players and other patients at risk for CTE (Stern et al. New Engl Jour Med 2019; Lesman-Segev et al. Neuroimage Clinical 2019). The overall signal was lower than that observed in Alzheimer’s disease, and, in lieu of correlations with post-mortem findings, it was unclear how well FTP binds to tau pathology in CTE. (more…)
Abuse and Neglect, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Autism, Medical Imaging, Mental Health Research, MRI, Multiple Sclerosis, Neurology, Technology / 23.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sebastian Magda, Ph.D Director of Science & Engineering CorTechs Labs, Inc MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous studies have shown that the changes of brain structure volume and/or metabolic activity are associated with various neurological diseases. We have created an artificial intelligence clinical decision support tool based on brain volumetric and PET metabolic activity measurements as well as other clinical measurements. (more…)
Aging, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, MRI, Technology / 23.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Weidong Luo Principal Scientist CorTechs Labs  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We were interested in whether or not we can predict the age of the brain accurately from T1 weighted MRI and/or fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET scans using the brain volumetric and the relative metabolic activity. The uptake of FDG is a clinical marker used to measure the uptake of glucose and therefore metabolism. Also, we were interested in the patterns of the predicted ages for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and minor cognitive impairment (MCI) subjects when using their brain measurements for age prediction in the normal brain age model.   (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Mammograms / 19.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nancy R. Kressin, PhD VA Medical Center, Jamaica Plain Campus Boston, MA   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: State-level legislation requires informing women about breast density (BD) with mammogram results, to increase awareness of BD’s tendency to mask cancers on mammography, its association with increased breast cancer risk, and to encourage women to discuss personal risk and supplemental screening with physicians. The Food and Drug Administration is currently developing dense breast notification (DBN) language for use nationwide; information about effects of state DBNs could be informative for FDA’s language. (more…)
Author Interviews, Medical Imaging, Technology / 11.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. David Steiner, MD PhD Google Health, USA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Advances in artificial intelligence raise promising opportunities for improved interpretation of chest X-rays and many other types of medical images. However, even before researchers begin to address the critical question of clinical validation, there is important work to be done establishing strategies for evaluating and comparing different artificial intelligence algorithms. One challenge is defining and collecting the correct clinical interpretation or “label” for the large number of chest X-rays needed to train and evaluate these algorithms. Another important challenge is evaluating the algorithm on a dataset that actually represents the diversity of the cases encountered in clinical practice. For example, it might be relatively easy to make an algorithm that performs perfectly on a few hundred or so “easy” cases, but this of course might not be particularly useful in practice. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Mammograms / 06.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sarah Moorman, MD Department of Radiology Michigan Medicine   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Professional societies and government agencies have variable recommendations regarding how often women should get a screening mammogram. Breast cancer screening may be recommended annually or biennially. These differing recommendations lead to confusion for both referring physicians and patients. The goal of our study was to better understand differences between annual and biennial screening. We reviewed clinical outcomes of women undergoing annual or biennial mammographic screening to determine if there is an advantage to annual screening. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, JAMA, Mammograms / 15.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Elham Kharazmi, MD, PhD Co-Leader, Risk Adapted Prevention (RAD) Group Division of Preventive Oncology National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) Germany MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer death in American women, exceeded only by lung cancer. Available evidence suggests that implementation of a screening program can decrease breast cancer mortality. Reductions in breast cancer mortality in Europe over the past two decades have been associated at least in part with the implementation of screening programs. Screening enables the detection of tumors at an early stage, when more treatment options are feasible and most effective. However, screening is associated with substantial risks, such as over-diagnosis, false-positive results, and physical and psychological harms, particularly when large numbers of women with low risk are frequently screened. (more…)
Author Interviews, CT Scanning, JAMA, Lung Cancer, UCSF / 23.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joshua Demb, PhD, MPH Postdoctoral Scholar, Moores Cancer Center University of California, San Diego Health Science Research Specialist Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Our study leveraged radiation dose data from 72 facilities performing CT scans around the United States to learn more about the radiation dose used for lung cancer screening scans, as well as possible institutional predictors that might be associated with higher dose.  Currently, the American College of Radiology has recommendations for how these low-dose lung cancer screening scans should be performed. However, it is unclear how much adherence there currently is to these guidelines. Our findings indicated that there is wide variation in the distribution of radiation doses for low-dose lung cancer screening scans both within- and between facilities in our sample—in some cases this variation led to doses higher than the ACR recommendations.   (more…)