Doubts grow over high-tech CT scans of heart

RSS

Wall Street Journal (blog), December 17, 2008

There is now more evidence that physicians shouldn't rush to use million-dollar scanners to look for heart disease: Doctors using 64-slice CT scans often identify blockages in the arteries around the heart when no blockages are actually present, according to a study of 360 patients. The findings are a troubling sign for a test that costs hundreds of dollars and subjects the patient to a high dose of radiation, according to this item from the Wall Street Journal Health Blog.

Full Story

Radiation should follow a mastectomy for advanced cancer, but often doesn't

Radiation after a mastectomy for advanced breast cancer is part of the standard treatment guidelines. But more than a decade after the lifesaving value of radiation was confirmed, about half of all women who...

Hospital monopolies ruin MRI bill as Sutter gets price it wants

After Mark Logsdon tore a ligament in his knee skiing at Lake Tahoe in March, he returned home to suburban Sacramento and had an MRI scan at Sutter Davis Hospital. Sutter’s price for the knee scan was...

Study: Use of imaging technology skyrockets

The use of MRI and CT scanners in the United States has more than doubled since 1995, but that hasn’t necessarily resulted in better healthcare or fewer deaths, according to a study by researchers at...

go to complete list