Dear AuntMinnieEurope Member,
When eight patients arrived at AZ Sint-Blasius Dendermonde in East Flanders for a CT scan on the morning of 27 August, they had no idea that they’d end up feeling extremely sick because of the procedure.
We now know that a contaminated bottle of contrast agent was the cause, but unanswered questions remain: How and where did the contamination occur? Why didn’t hospital managers intervene earlier, when the first couple of patients felt unwell? Were radiology staff adequately trained in contamination avoidance? Will more hospitals switch back to single-dose vials due to the contamination risk of multidose containers? What other lessons can we learn from the incident? Let’s hope for some answers soon.
Having a disease or a radiologic sign named after you is a secret ambition of many people, Dr. Giles Maskell believes. In a new column, he’s keen to enlighten us about Maskell’s Law of Cancer.
CT radiographers have a central role to play in the clinical implementation of AI, particularly when it comes to optimizing patient care, managing radiation dose, and ensuring image quality, a European team has found. Radiographers’ collaboration with radiologists and medical physicists will be essential to harness the full potential of AI, the group added. You can find out more in our special report.
The use of AI software is a must for CT lung cancer screening, particularly for detecting and characterizing nodules, Prof. Mathieu Lederlin, president of the Journées Francophones de Radiologie (JFR 25), told Associate Editor Frances Rylands-Monk in a face-to-face interview. At Lederlin’s own hospital, radiologists are using and evaluating several AI tools, both for performing simple tasks on complex exams, such as CT nodule detection, or complex tasks on simple exams, like interpreting chest x-rays.
Finally, AI decision-support software is being implemented by National Health Service (NHS) England to speed up intervention for stroke patients. An analysis of more than 60,000 brain scans shows that the software, implemented at all 100 regularly admitting NHS stroke services last summer, can reduce the time between a patient presenting with a stroke and receiving treatment by more than 60 minutes.
Philip Ward
Editor in Chief
AuntMinnieEurope.com
