Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who are at high-risk for esophageal injury caused by radiofrequency (RF) ablation can be identified by anatomical features easily seen on pre-acquired CT images, according to a study published in this month's HeartRhythm Journal.

Due to the current economic recession and decreasing reimbursement to cardiology, cath labs across the U.S. are being pressured to implement cost-control strategies to remain solvent.  Five cath lab practitioners and administrators came together to discuss their institutions tactics for maintaining economic viability, including competitive bidding and reducing the number of vendor products, while providing superior patient care.

Todays cath labs are repositories of much information that will determine hospital standings in terms of quality, physician performance, and profits and losses. All of this informationfrom images to inventory to hemodynamic datamust be available in real time withinand outsidethe  enterprise. Cardiovascular Business asked two health systemsone best-of-breed, one single-sourceto discuss their cath lab IT strategy.

Both PET and CT are excellent cardiac imaging modalities, but does their individual value hold up when combined in a hybrid scanner? The tentative answer seems to be no, with a few exceptions.

While a plethora of research has reinforced the clinical benefits of performing catheter-based proceduresdiagnostic and PCIvia the radial artery compared with the femoral artery, some hospital executives question whether the fiscal and workflow benefits of employing this technique will be equally beneficial. Four providers speak to their reasons for adopting a transradial program, along with the economic and practice management considerations.

Sharp HealthCare is a not-for-profit, integrated regional healthcare delivery system that includes four acute-care hospitals, three specialty hospitals and two medical groups and multiple clinics in the San Diego area.

The California State Assembly in a bipartisan vote of 70-4 has approved SB 1237, which seeks to establish protocols and safeguards to protect patients from excess radiation exposure during CT scans by requiring radiation dosage levels be recorded on the scanned image and in a patients health records and that radiation overdoses be reported to patients, their treating physicians and the California Department of Public Health.

MRI provides excellent soft-tissue contrast, but the drawback is its temporal resolution. Whereas CT scanning of the coronary arteries takes mere seconds, MRI can take up to 20 minutes or even longer. The latest innovation to increase the speed of MRI, however, is to employ multi-channel radiofrequency (RF) coils with parallel acquisition techniques.