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Medical Imaging

Medical Imaging in 2022

For our final issue of 2022 we’re reflecting on some of the year’s biggest radiology storylines, including some trends that might have a major impact in 2023 and beyond.

“Post-COVID” – Radiology teams thankfully scanned and assessed far fewer COVID patients in 2022, but the pandemic was still partially responsible for most of the trends included in this recap.

Imaging Labor Crunch – Many organizations still didn’t have enough radiologists and technologists to keep up with their imaging volumes this year, driving up labor costs and making efficiency even more important.

Hospital Margin Crunch – There’s a very good chance that the hospitals you work for or sell to had a tough financial year in 2022, placing greater importance on initiatives/technologies that earn or save them money (and address their labor challenges).

AI Evolution – If a radiology outsider read a random Imaging Wire issue they might think that radiologists already use AI every day. We know that isn’t true, but imaging AI’s 2022 progress suggests that we’re slowly heading in that direction.

New Mega Practice Paradigm – After years of massive national expansions, recent unfavorable shifts in surprise billing reimbursements, radiologist staffing (costs & shortages), and the lending environment seemed to have caused large PE-backed radiology groups to pivot their 2022 strategies from practice growth to practice optimization.

The Patient Engagement Push – Radiology patient engagement gained momentum in 2022, as imaging teams and vendors worked to make imaging more accessible and understandable, more patient-centric imaging startups emerged, and radiology departments continued to get better at follow-up management.

The AI Shakeup – Everyone who has been predicting AI consolidation took a victory lap in 2022, which brought at least two strategic pivots (MaxQ AI & Kheiron) and the acquisitions of Aidence and Quantib (by RadNet), Nines (by Sirona), Arterys (by Tempus), MedoAI (by Exo), and Predible (by nference). This trend should continue in 2023, as VCs remain selective and larger AI players extend their lead over their smaller competitors.

Imaging Leaves the Hospital – Between the surge of hospital-at-home initiatives and payors’ efforts to move imaging exams to outpatient settings, imaging’s shift beyond hospital walls continued throughout 2022 and doesn’t seem to be slowing as we head into 2023.

Canon’s AiCE Reconstruction Challenge

Despite what we’ve been taught, acquiring high SNR MRIs doesn’t always mean longer scan times. Take Canon’s AiCE Deep Learning Reconstruction challenge and see if you can tell which of these brain MRI studies were performed in less scan time with the help of AiCE DLR.

Let’s Talk About Your Data Quality

Healthcare is rife with data quality issues, creating a range of workflow and financial challenges, and placing increased responsibilities on PACS administrators. See how Enltic’s Curie|ENDEX data governance solution addresses these challenges, while improving radiology teams’ AI adoption readiness.

The Wire

• Fujifilm’s Pathology Expansion: Fujifilm will acquire Inspirata’s Dynamyx digital pathology business, expanding its Synapse Enterprise Imaging portfolio beyond radiology and cardiology. Previously a Fujifilm partner, Inspirata Dynamyx offers a pathology slide / workflow management platform (slide digitization, archiving, routing) that reportedly boasts the most interoperability partners in its segment. The acquisition continues enterprise imaging’s expansion into pathology, adding to a growing list of imaging companies with digital pathology businesses (e.g. Sectra, Philips) or partnerships (GE w/ Tribun, Siemens w/ Proscia).

• Omnibus Impact: Congress released the 2023 US Omnibus spending bill, which would have a major impact on next year’s healthcare economic environment. The bill brings a 2% reduction in Medicare physician reimbursements in 2023 and a 3.5% cut in 2024, which are better than the expected 4.5% reduction, but still drew objections from the ACR and other physician groups. Congress also extended a range of existing programs (telehealth flexibilities, rural hospital funding, value-based care bonuses) and unveiled new public and mental health programs.

• CXR AI COVID Oxygen Prediction: Mass General Brigham researchers developed an explainable CXR AI model that can predict COVID patients’ oxygen requirements. The MGB team fine-tuned an existing explainable AI model that was trained with 241k CXRs before the pandemic. In testing, the enhanced model accurately predicted whether COVID patients would require oxygen and mechanical ventilation within 24 hours (AUCs: 0.953 & 0.934) and 72 hours (AUCs: 0.932 & 0.836) after ED admission.

• Signify’s Breast Imaging Forecast: Signify Research forecasts that the global breast imaging market will exceed $1.3B by 2026, as the breast AI segment triples to roughly $200M. While the overall breast imaging market partially recovered from the COVID pandemic in 2021, inflation and supply chain challenges are expected to drive a 9% overall revenue decline in 2022. The market should rebound again in 2023 and maintain steady growth in 2024-2026.

• CZT Speeds SPECT/CT Metastasis Exams: New research published in EJNMMI Physics suggests that general-purpose CZT PET/CT scanners might help overcome the scan time issues that have delayed adoption of whole-body bone SPECT/CT, even though is more accurate than planar bone scintigraphy. Thirty patients with prostate cancer underwent 99mTc-HMDP SPECT/CT metastasis staging exams using a CZT-based GE scanner, finding that exams could be conducted in 16 minutes without sacrificing diagnostic performance (vs. 40 minutes w/ current standards).

• Sonio Scores Another €10M: French prenatal ultrasound AI startup Sonio secured €10M in new funding (€7.5M equity investment, €2.5M grant) that it will use to add features to its platform, support its US market expansion, and increase its European commercialization efforts. Sonio, which also raised €5M in July, guides sonographers through the prenatal scan process to ensure exam completeness, and then supports diagnosis by detecting abnormalities.

• MBrixia COVID Scoring: A Denmark-based team modified the existing 18-point Brixia CXR scoring system, creating the new 36-point ‘MBrixia’ system for COVID-19 pneumonia severity assessments (the sum of 12 lung zones, each with a 1-3 severity scale). When applied to 290 CXRs from 37 hospitalized COVID patients, patients who required more respiratory support generally had higher MBrixia scores.

• DeepHealth’s Density FDA: RadNet’s DeepHealth subsidiary secured FDA clearance for its Saige-Density AI solution, which automatically generates ACR BI-RADS density categories to support radiologists’ breast density assessments. Saige-Density joins Saige-DX (detects and scores lesions in screening mammograms) and Saige-Q (mammography triage & worklist prioritization software) in DeepHealth’s increasingly comprehensive mammography AI lineup.

• Breast Readers’ AI Perceptions: A recent Insights into Imaging survey (n = 73) revealed that many UK-based breast cancer screening radiologists support AI adoption (63%), even though relatively few have “good to excellent” understanding of AI (37%). The respondents showed the greatest support for using AI to replace one radiologist in double reader workflows, but opposed using AI to replace both readers (as expected). They were also mixed on using AI as a diagnostic companion or to triage/flag exams for further review, which are ironically two of the more common mammography AI use cases.

• Radiographer’s AI Perceptions: In other AI perception news, a survey of 314 global radiographers revealed widespread beliefs that imaging AI will have a major impact on their workflows and highlighted their strong desire for more AI training. The survey showed that 67% believe that AI will change their daily practices, but far fewer feel confident using or implementing AI (31.4% & 50.3%), prompting 69.3% to agree that AI should be added to radiographer training curriculums.

• In-Med Prognostics Adds $2M: Indian imaging AI startup In-Med Prognostics completed a $2.13M funding round that it will use to expand its product portfolio and global reach. Although In-Med Prognostics’ strategy appears largely focused on supporting neurological disorder assessments, it also has a multimodal whole-body analysis solution intended to support athletes and their trainers. 

Pediatric Hydrocephalus’ Radiation Impact

“We care about how we image these children because we don’t like them to get radiation.” That’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital neurosurgery chief, Jeffrey Leonard, MD, explaining why he endorses monitoring pediatric hydrocephalus patients using the Hyperfine Swoop Portable MR (rather than CT) in this revealing webinar.

Annalise CXR In Action

annalise.ai’s Annalise CXR solution detects up to 124 findings in a single chest X-ray. See how it detects such a wide range of abnormalities using these demo studies…  or upload your own CXR images.

The Resource Wire

• See how cloud-native imaging avoids traditional software’s resource utilization constraints and eliminates unexpected disruptions in this Change Healthcare animation.

• Relive RSNA 2022 with this Imaging Wire Show, featuring Bayer Radiology’s Barbara Ruhland. We reflect on radiology’s major themes and trends since the last RSNA, how they affected this year’s conversations, and how Bayer is supporting imaging teams’ changing needs.

• Ready for the patient, clinical, and business benefits of in-office MRI exams? See why Siemens Healthineers’ MAGNETOM Free.Max’s 80cm bore, compact footprint, and cryogen-free design allows orthopedic practices to adopt a complete, in-office MRI solution.

• Check out this first-of-its-kind Imaging Wire Show held on-site at RSNA 2022, with Intelerad leaders Morris Panner and A.J. Watson,. We discuss Intelerad’s latest initiatives and acquisitions, its expanding cloud focus, and its strategy heading into 2023, making this a must-watch episode if you’re involved with Intelerad or working on your own enterprise imaging strategy.

• When this 66 year-old woman was referred for pain and functional impotence of the wrist, her initial X-ray images were normal. However, Arterys’ Chest I MSK AI detected a fracture on the dorsal side of her cortical bone, alerting the radiologist and confirming her injury.

• Watch industry leaders and trendsetters in radiology, Dr. Krishna Nallamshetty, CMO at Radiology Partners, and Dr. Ron Shnier, CMO at I-MED Radiology Network, share their perspectives on the CARPL platform, from clinical trials to clinical deployment at RSNA 2022.

• Check out this Imaging Wire Show featuring Us2.ai’s co-founders, James Hare and Carolyn Lam MBBS, PhD, detailing Us2.ai’s unique origins, impressive capabilities, and big goals to automate echocardiography reporting across the world.

• This Riverain Technologies case study details how Duke University Medical Center integrated ClearRead CT into its chest CT workflows, reducing read times by 26% and improving nodule detection by 29%.

• See how 2-meter total body PET gives molecular imaging teams a diagnostic advantage compared to other “eyes to thighs” PET options in this editorial by United Imaging CEO Jeffrey M. Bundy.

• Working out your AI business case? Check out this helpful Blackford Analysis report on how to calculate AI’s clinical, IT, administrative, and financial value to your organization.

• See how Novarad’s CryptoChart solution allowed Central Ohio Primary Care (COPC, 70 practices, 400 physicians) to make the transition to digital imaging sharing in this Healthcare IT News case study.

• It’s no secret that radiologists are increasingly burned out, but there are technology-based solutions to this problem. Check out this GE Healthcare report detailing how a workload optimization engine can boost radiologists’ productivity and reduce burnout.