Siemens Medical Solutions has announced plans to introduce AXIOM Artis dBA Twin, an innovative imaging system designed for universal angiography neuroradiology, at the Radiological Society of North America’s conference in Chicago next week. The AXIOM Artis dBA Twin reportedly features the largest biplane anatomical coverage available, and it is uniquely equipped with two 30x40-centimeter flat detectors.

Nuclear medicine products firm IBA Molecular displayed Empact, its new education marketing initiative for PET and PET/CT. Empact offers marketing tools specifically designed to target referring physicians and instructs users in effectively marketing PET.

Gamma Medica-Ideas debuted its fifth-generation Flex Triumph pre-clinical imaging system, which can be configured with PET, SPECT or CT subsystems, or any combination of the three.

Swissray International Inc. has introduced its newest DR system, the ddRCompact, which it touts as state-of-the-art DR technology competitively priced. The system incorporates the new digital high-definition silicon solid-state detector with micro lens technology, delivering spatial resolution at low radiation doses.

Cedara Software unveiled its Cedara PET/CT application and its work-in progress Cedara I-Response, which visualizes tumor response to specific therapies. Available for integration into existing applications or as a standalone workstation, the software has standard features for worklist management and offers configurable layouts.

Toshiba America Medical Systems demonstrated software upgrades for its Aquilion series of CT scanners. The Version 3.0 software improvements include enhanced DICOM protocols and upgraded user interface for fluoroscopy applications. The new software began shipping in August.

Philips Medical Systems showed off new workstation software for its Brilliance 64-slice CT program that includes tools for cardiac vessel analysis. Extended Brilliance Workspace 3.5, scheduled for release in June, features electrophysiological planning for radiofrequency ablation and a function enabling tumor localization on the CT console.

Health care advocates have long encouraged physicians to switch to computerized medical records, saying they could improve patient care and increase efficiency. Doctors, however, have been more concerned about the high price tag — often more than $20,000 per physician for software, hardware and Internet connections — as well as having to maintain a computer network. Surveys estimate less than 20 percent of doctors have fully automated their offices.

America’s Health Insurance Plans is poised to announce an industry initiative for making personal health records portable from one health insurance company to another. AHIP will make public the details of an 18-month pilot project with 10 AHIP member companies on December 13.

The panel studied ways health insurance companies could assist in making PHRs interoperable. The plan will also recommend minimum elements for all PHRs. AHIP represents nearly 1,300 member companies providing health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans.

British researchers have developed a vaccine that stimulates colorectal cancer patients’ immune systems to fight cancerous cells.

In a clinical trial of 67 patients, researchers at the University of Nottingham observed that when the vaccines were administered before and after surgery to remove cancerous tumors, they helped stimulated immune cell production in up to 70 percent of patients. These results are published in the November 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

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