Tag: incidental findings

Integrated Solutions for Managing Incidental CAC Findings

Posted on by Partner Content

The rising prominence of coronary artery calcium as a prognostic marker for heart disease has created an emerging challenge for radiologists: how should they manage incidental CAC findings discovered on routine CT exams? Fortunately, new industry collaborations are making it possible to deliver CAC reports to clinicians without disrupting workflow. 

Routine CT scans are revealing data beyond their original diagnostic intent.

  • AI solutions – such as AVIEW CAC from Coreline Soft – play a pivotal role in identifying risks for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and metabolic disorders – all from a single scan.

AI allows one CT scan to assess lung, cardiovascular, and skeletal health, improving diagnosis and treatment planning.

One imaging services provider that has put AVIEW CAC into use is 3DR Labs, which has been actively integrating the solution into its nationwide clinical network.

  • The partnership enables 3DR Labs radiologists to generate consistent, high-quality CAC reports directly within PACS, while significantly reducing turnaround times.

3DR Labs is finding that AVIEW CAC optimizes workflow efficiency and significantly reduces the time required for CAC assessment. 

  • It also ensures that radiologic technologists can perform quick QA checks, enhancing consistency and reliability in the delivery of the report.

The latest generation of the FDA-cleared AVIEW CAC features an upgraded user interface and advanced batch-scoring functionality. 

  • 3DR Labs is now working to expand AI-driven insights into lung and neuroimaging through Coreline’s broader AVIEW platform (AVIEW ILA for interstitial lung abnormalities and AVIEW BAS for brain CT).

Beyond diagnostic imaging, this collaboration supports growing demands for cost-efficiency in healthcare. 

  • As U.S. insurers and government agencies recognize the ROI potential of early AI detection, platforms like AVIEW CAC offer scalable, high-performance solutions that lower costs and streamline care delivery.

3DR Labs has also highlighted Coreline Soft’s role as a founding partner in AI Labs, the company’s vendor-neutral platform to deliver the latest AI innovations to radiology workflows.

The Takeaway

New partnerships like the collaboration between Coreline Soft and 3DR Labs are advancing the future of AI in radiology – focusing on automation, early detection, and better patient outcomes through powerful, clinically validated technologies. Such partnerships not only reflect increasing adoption of AI in U.S. healthcare but set the stage for global transformation in diagnostic imaging.

Incidental Findings and Low-Value Care

Posted on by Jake Fishman

A whopping 15% to 30% of diagnostic imaging exams reveal at least one incidental finding. Each of those findings might seem like blessings to radiology outsiders, but a popular new AJR editorial argues that imaging incidentals are far more likely to drive low-value care.

Michigan Medicine’s Matthew Davenport, MD led-off his editorial by suggesting that early cancer detection “is not always an ideal outcome,” because most of those cancers won’t affect patient health, while incidental follow-ups always require resources and often negatively impact patients (physically, financially, and emotionally).

He identified numerous reasons for radiology’s incidental overdiagnosis challenges…

  • Screening low-risk patients inherently uncovers low-risk incidentals
  • There’s a lack of understanding of incidental risks (clinically and downstream)
  • Many early cancers don’t or shouldn’t require treatment
  • Radiologists face significant pressure to recommend follow-ups

Although many incidental findings significantly improve patient outcomes, and those positive examples have established incidentals as a “secondary benefit of imaging,” the editorial suggests that incidentals will have a negative overall impact on radiology’s value until current practices change. 

So, what should we do? Dr. Davenport encourages radiologists to…

  • Become more aware of the harms of incidental management
  • Advocate for guidelines that emphasize high-value care
  • Support research on incidental management practices
  • “Avoid being alarmist” about incidentals in radiology reporting
  • Adopt solutions to help rads assess incidental patients’ risk factors
  • Balance diagnostic sensitivity with minimizing follow-up risks 

The Takeaway

If you scroll through the Imaging Wire archives, you’ll find plenty of stories that depict incidentals as a net positive for patient care. In fact, most suggest that radiology’s research and business leaders are actively trying to find ways to detect more incidentals. However, efforts to better understand or to reduce incidentals’ negative impacts are far less common. 

That divide is pretty notable given how many radiologists agree with Dr. Davenport, and it suggests that the barriers to solving incidental findings’ value problems are quite high.

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