August 2, 2011 – The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) has developed iASE, a tool that provides clear, concise summaries of the ASE’s most popular guidelines as applications for mobile devices. This highly portable tool allows physicians to access guidelines and calculators for echocardiography in one place, combining many steps traditionally taken by practitioners into one easy step, according to Chi-Ming Chow, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and staff cardiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario. Chow, part of the team that created the application for ASE’s Information Technology (IT) Committee, noted that while ASE’s posters and pocket guides to the guidelines for cardiovascular ultrasound are wonderful in traditional settings, the mobile application can be used by practitioners anywhere: at the patient’s bedside, while teaching residents how to take measurements or when sharing calculations with sonographers, making it an ideal teaching and reference tool.

August 2, 2011 – An estimated 1.7 million clinical positron emission tomography (PET) patient studies were performed in the United States in 2010, according to a report just released by IMV Medical Information Division. These PET studies were performed in 2,085 hospital and non-hospital sites, using fixed or mobile PET/computed tomography (CT) or PET scanners.

July 29, 2011 – Philips installed a MultiDiagnost Eleva X-ray system at Delray Medical Center, a 493-bed acute care hospital serving southeast Florida, and MultiDiagnost Eleva with 3-D-RX reconstruction technology at West Boca Medical Center, an award-winning facility serving Boca Raton and Palm Beach county regions. The hospitals are part of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, one of the largest investor-owned healthcare delivery systems in the nation.

July 29, 2011 — Oxygen Biotherapeutics Inc. and privately held Aurum Biosciences Ltd. of Glasgow, Scotland, have signed a letter of intent (LOI) to conduct preclinical research for imaging and therapeutic intervention of acute ischemic stroke. Aurum, using Oxygen’s proprietary Oxycyte PFC (perfluorocarbon) emulsion in combination with Aurum’s proprietary Glasgow Oxygen Level Dependent (GOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, will conduct the research.

July 29, 2011 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week issued draft guidance that clarifies when changes or modifications to a previously cleared 510(k) device require a new premarket submission.

July 27, 2011 – A special panel convened July 21 in Gaithersburg, Md., to review the results of the Excor pediatric ventricular assist device (VAD) investigational device exemption (IDE) clinical trial. The panel convened at the request of Bram Zuckerman, M.D., director, division of cardiovascular devices, Center for Devices and Radiologic Health of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

July 27, 2011 – As the number of interventional procedures to diagnose and treat patients increases worldwide, and the procedures grow in complexity and length, exposure to radiation is a growing concern for both clinicians and patients. Interventional fluoroscopy is the third largest source of radiation from medical procedures, accounting for about 7 percent of the total radiation exposure of Americans in a year, according to a study by the National Council on Radiation Protection. GE’s Innova imaging systems help clinicians reduce radiation exposure without compromising the image quality they need to make confident decisions during interventional procedures.