Dr. Hadeer Shaikhly, formerly the chief of radiology at Windham Hospital in Connecticut, who recently opened an outpatient center for CT scans and MRIs in a local mall, encourages patients to drop in for an MRI or CT while they shop.
Shaikhly’s center provides night and weekend appointments and immediate review of the results. Plus, second reads by a certified outsourced service are free of charge.

The September 2006 issue of the journal Radiology reports that investigators have developed a new way to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to effectively gauge the hardness or elasticity of the liver. MR elastography (MRE), as the technique is called, holds great potential for detecting liver fibrosis, a common condition that can lead to incurable cirrhosis if not treated in time. MRE is an accurate and painless alternative to liver biopsy that may also have implications for diagnosing cancer.

A new imaging modality may be getting ready to join the ranks of X-ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI and nuclear imaging. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is similar to B-mode ultrasound and produces 2-D, cross-sectional, high-resolution images of tissue and microstructure using near infrared light, opposed to sound.

Nikon Instruments awarded its Small World award to the image of a cell nuclei of a mouse colon as seen through the microscope, which was generated for genomics and bioinformatics research by Dr. Paul Appleton, a researcher from the Division of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Dundee in the UK.

Eclipsys Corp. today announced that University Hospitals (UH), Cleveland, OH, has contracted for Sunrise Clinical Manager and its fully integrated modules, including Sunrise Acute Care, Sunrise Ambulatory Care, Sunrise Emergency Care, Sunrise Critical Care, Sunrise Pharmacy and Knowledge-Based Charting. The use of Sunrise Clinical Manager will allow UH to connect its physicians, nurses, pharmacists, other clinicians and administrators, allowing patient information to flow seamlessly throughout the hospital.