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A five-day course of once-daily inorganic nitrate reduces the risk of a serious complication following a coronary angiogram, in which the dye used causes damage to the kidneys. The clinical trial also showed that the five-day course improves renal outcomes at three months and major adverse cardiac events (MACE) at one year compared to placebo. Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN), also known as contrast associated acute kidney injury (CA-AKI), is an uncommon but serious complication following coronary angiography. A special dye, which is visible on X-rays, is injected into the body and when the dye reaches the coronary arteries, an X-ray is...

Careful what you let your children play with as the curious case of a 59-year-old Russian man has left everyone surprised in the city of Zelenograd. For over 50 years, the 59-year-old suffered serious nose breathing difficulties because of a coin he had shoved up his nose as a child and forgot about over the years. He had been completely unable to breathe through his right nostril for several months hence why he decided to report to a hospital. The foreign object was recently discovered by doctors at the Konchalovsky City Clinical Hospital in Zelenograd when a CT scan was...

on hold with the VA for almost a full hour post op complications, maybe neighbor said my wounds are warm, they are all asking me to go to ER VA finally answers. I was so angry, I told her I was waiting 55 minutes for someone to answer the phone, what is going on?? she said, "Do you need any help from me?" I said, "I am not sure, I think I might need to go to the ER." She said, "Well, then, just go." Didn't want to discuss symptoms with me at all, anything about my condition, nothing to...

Waukesha - The sight of a terrified little girl about to have an MRI scan gave Doug Dietz a different perspective on his work as an industrial designer at GE Healthcare - and led to a project that has turned imaging departments at 27 children's hospitals into small theme parks. The idea that eventually emerged from a mix of brainstorming and research - with some persistence thrown in - was to transform a frightening medical test into a voyage on a spaceship, a visit to a pirate island and other adventures. Imaging departments became elaborate sets. Technicians became amateur actors...

Radiation doses from computed tomographic (CT) scans are higher than previously thought and vary widely, even among the same types of examinations, two studies showed. Radiation from medical tests is generally measured in units called millisieverts, or mSv. One mSv is equivalent to the estimated dose of background radiation the average American absorbs in a year. In the first study, based on information from four San Francisco-area hospitals, median effective doses ranged from 2 mSv for a routine head scan to 31 mSv for a multiphase abdomen and pelvis scan, according to Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman of the University of California...

Scientists have developed a computerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity. The breakthrough by American scientists took MRI scanning equipment normally used in hospital diagnosis to observe patterns of brain activity when a subject examined a range of black and white photographs. Then a computer was able to correctly predict in nine out of 10 cases which image people were focused on. Guesswork would have been accurate only eight times in every 1,000 attempts. The study raises the possibility in the future of the technology...

Posted on Fri, Apr. 13, 2007 4600-year-old skulls from Iraq to get CT scanRon Todt The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA - A pair of 4,600-year-old skulls from Iraq will be given a CT scan that promises to reveal the faces of two of the dozens of sacrificial victims found decades ago in the remains of an ancient Sumerian city. The procedure will be done Sunday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on the skulls of a young woman adorned with gold ornaments and a man wearing a copper helmet, both found in the southern Iraq city of Ur in...

The first ever facial reconstructions based on CT scans of King Tutankhamun's mummy have produced images strikingly similar to the boy pharaoh's ancient portraits, Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday. One of the models shows a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and a round chin — with a resemblance to the famous gold mask of King Tut found in his tomb in 1922 by British excavation Howard Carter. Three teams of forensic artists and scientists — from France, the United States and Egypt — built models of the boy pharaoh's face based on some 1,700 high-resolution photos from CT...

Terri Schiavo's CT scan – another physician’s opinion March 31st, 2005 The amount of medical misinformation put out about Terri Schiavo has been truly stunning. The testimony of Terri’s physicians who believe that some recovery is possible has been largely dismissed. Judge Greer’s court and the media in turn, have focused only on the pessimistic interpretations of the raw data of her CT scan. A physician at a credible physicians’ website has analyzed Terri’s CAT scan and concludes that it has been grossly misrepresented. There is some cerebral atrophy, but it is a completely inaccurate to characterize it as “bag...

WASHINGTON: A new study has revealed that a full- body computed tomography (CT) scan, could increase the risk of cancer mortality. According to the study, published in the journal Radiology, the increasing popularity of full-body CT screening has raised concerns regarding the radiation-related cancer mortality risk associated with full-body CT radiation exposure. "Our research provides definitive evidence that radiation risk is associated with full-body CT scans. The radiation dose from a full-body CT scan is comparable to the doses received by some of the atomic-bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where there is clear evidence of increased cancer risk," said...

WHAT'S NEXT THE familiar electrocardiograms of yearly medical checkups are the routine way to record electrical activity of the heart and detect disorders in its rhythms. But the test is relatively insensitive at pinpointing small areas where there may be problems, since a standard EKG machine samples electrical potential only at a handful of points on the body's surface. But a new computer-based method developed by a researcher seeks to deliver far more detailed information about the electrical activity of the heart. Instead of a dozen or so electrodes, the technique uses 224 of them, all woven into a chain...