ASRT Insider

Last chance — Win a dream vacation

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

There's less than one week left to purchase tickets for the ASRT Foundation's Annual Drawing! Buy your tickets now for the chance to win a five-night vacation to New York City; Kona, Hawaii; or Key Largo, Fla. Other great prizes include a $500 gift card to The Home Depot and a Kindle Fire HD 7" tablet. Your ticket purchase also helps support Foundation programs. Tickets are only $20 each, and discounted multiticket packages are available. Get yours today!

Practice changes cut staff's radiation exposure

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

Hospital staff potentially are exposed to radiation from patients who undergo myocardial perfusion imaging. In a letter published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the authors estimated occupational radiation exposure with MPI and offered ways to reduce it.

New x-ray method with low radiation dose can visualize soft tissue

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

Scientists developed a new, lower dose x-ray method that works completely different than classical x-ray radiographs that provide information about absorptive structures such as bones. Conversely, the new method is based on diffraction and can image soft tissues in 3-D and high resolution.

Maryland becomes 7th state with breast density notification law

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley recently signed SB 334, the "Mammograms — Dense Breast Tissue — Notification" into law. It requires all mammography providers in the state, with the exception of Department of Veterans Affairs facilities, to include information about breast density in the results letters they send to patients starting on Oct. 1.

Use of portable ultrasound machines to assist with IV placement growing

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

The use of small, portable ultrasound machines to assist with IV placement has been growing in recent years, particularly in large teaching hospitals like Thomas Jefferson University. New emergency medicine residents now learn to use ultrasound as part of their training, and older doctors are catching up. Experts said the technique was spreading to smaller community hospitals and other units where IVs are inserted.

Proton therapy offering new approaches for radiation oncology

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

The next big thing actually has been around for quite a while. Originally developed after the end of World War II, proton therapy was way ahead of its time but remained somewhat underutilized, mainly seen in physics laboratories prior to the development of a clinical application. With modern advances in imaging, a small number of facilities in the United States have turned to proton-based radiation techniques in radiation oncology departments.

Many Texas women who find abnormality end up in surgical breast biopsy

21 May 2013 15:26:36 CDT

Many women in Texas who are found to have an abnormality on routine mammogram or discover a lump in one of their breasts end up having an old-fashioned surgical biopsy to find out whether the breast abnormality is malignant. Since 2001, national expert panels have recommended that the first course of action for women with breast lumps or masses should be minimally invasive biopsy.