Dear AuntMinnieEurope Member,
A new commentary published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is reviving the debate over a controversial report published in Switzerland earlier this year that questioned whether breast cancer screening should continue in the country.
Two members of the Swiss Medical Board published an editorial opinion in NEJM on 16 April explaining their rationale for the report, which recommended that no new screening programs be launched in Switzerland, and that existing programs be put on a time limit. Read more about their commentary here.
But European breast imagers are rising to the defense of screening mammography. They said the Swiss report is based on faulty clinical studies, a perspective shared even by members of the Swiss radiological community. Learn more by clicking here, or visit our Women's Imaging Digital Community.
Swedish experts in advanced visualization are making contributions to a pioneering project designed to use CT and a novel visualization table to shed more light on ancient Egyptian mummies. Learn more by clicking here for an article in our Advanced Visualization Digital Community.
Do radiologists need to do more to change how they are viewed by the public? It might be a good idea, according Belgian radiologist Dr. Jan Bosmans, who is conducting a survey on patients' conceptions and perceptions of diagnostic radiology. Based on the preliminary results, you might be surprised at how they viewed radiologists -- find out by clicking here for an article by contributing writer Frances Rylands-Monk.
Medical physicists are also set to raise their profile, if a new European Union directive dealing with safety in the use of ionizing radiation is any guide. Get more details by clicking here.
And despite the prowess of computer-aided detection (CAD), a single radiologist using the technology did not perform as well as two human readers interpreting chest radiographs for lung nodules.