UltraSPECT announced that MaineHealth, a family of hospitals and medical centers throughout Maine, has selected the UltraSPECT Xpress.Cardiac and Xpress3.Cardiac solutions as part of the organization’s strategy for reducing nuclear medicine (NM) dose and complying with the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) final guidelines effective Jan. 1, 2014. Maine Medical Partners (MMP) – MaineHealth Cardiology in South Portland is one of ten facilities within MaineHealth that is installing the product, with others scheduled to continue roll out before the end of 2013.

At RSNA 2013, Sony will be showing a works-in-progress medical recorder, the HVO-500MD (without DVD optical drive) and the HVO-550MD (with DVD optical drive). These models are designed specifically for medical recording.

Cardiac stents to open blocked heart arteries and reduce chest pain have been used for decades. However, cardiologists have never been certain that women benefitted from their use because clinical trials testing stents only included, at most, 25 percent women, making the overall findings mostly relevant to just men.

Among patients with prehypertension and coronary artery disease, use of the renin (an enzyme secreted by the kidneys) inhibitor aliskiren, compared with placebo, did not result in improvement or slowing in the progression of coronary atherosclerosis, according to a study published by JAMA. The study was released early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2013.