Heather Jacene, MD, SNMMI scientific program chair, on the presentation of Image of the Year honors to a theranostic image.

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How can radiology practices use innovative training and education techniques to grow and overcome the ongoing shortage of radiologists? Find out in this Imaging Wire Show interview with Daniel Arnold and Deanna Heier of Medality (formerly MRI Online). 

Artificial Intelligence

H1 Radiology Recap

That’s a wrap for the first half of 2023. Below are the top stories in radiology for the past 6 months, as well as some tips on what to look for in the second half of the year.

• ChatGPT Takes Over Radiology – Our first mention of ChatGPT came in December 2022, but it was in the first half of 2023 that the generative AI algorithm really began to spread its wings in medical imaging. Researchers began finding new use cases for ChatGPT, GPT-4 passed the radiology board exam, and ChatGPT even contributed to a review article on itself. But rumblings of disaffection have been simmering, both about whether ChatGPT will measure up to the hype and about the overall impact of AI on society if its growth continues unfettered. H2 of 2023 will likely see radiology find more creative ways to leverage the model’s potential.

• Radiology Bounces Back – After several crushing years in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first half brought welcome news to radiology on several fronts. The 2023 Match wrapped up with diagnostic radiology on top as the most popular medical specialty for medical students over the past 3 years. Radiology was one of the highest-compensated specialties in surveys from Medscape and Doximity, and even vendors got into the act, reporting higher revenue and earnings as supply chain delays cleared up. Will the momentum continue in the second half? 

• Burnout Looms Large – Even as salaries grow, healthcare is grappling with increased physician burnout. Realization is growing that burnout is a systemic problem – tied to rising healthcare volumes – that defies self-care solutions. Congressional legislation would boost residency slots 5% a year for 7 years, but is even this enough? Alternatively, could IT tools like AI help offload medicine’s more mundane tasks and alleviate workloads? Both questions will be debated in the back half of 2023. 

• Mammography Makes News – On the clinical side, breast imaging made headlines in the first half, led by the USPSTF’s decision to lower its recommended starting age for mammography screening to 40. DBT was also a hot topic, especially in studies pointing to the technology’s growing role as a tool for screening. The FDA even released its long-awaited policy setting a national standard for breast density reporting.

• In-Person Shows Are Back – The pandemic took a wrecking ball to the trade show calendar, but things began to return to normal in the first half of 2023. Both ECR and HIMSS held meetings that saw respectable attendance, following up on a successful RSNA 2022. By the time SIIM 2023 rolled around in early June, the pandemic was a distant memory as radiology focused on the value of being together. 

The Takeaway

As the second half of 2023 begins, all eyes will be on ChatGPT and whether a technology that’s mostly a curious novelty now can evolve into a useful clinical tool in the future. 

What Exams Are Radiologists Reading?

What kinds of medical imaging exams are radiologists reading today, and how confident do they feel across different subspecialties? Find out in the 2023 Radiology Practice Development Report from Medality.

Echo AI for Myocardial Strain

Strain imaging is the most sensitive parameter for determining myocardial deformation and systolic left ventricular function. In this video, see how echo AI from Us2.ai was used to analyze myocardial global longitudinal strain.

The Wire

• Paying for Radiology AI: One of the hurdles holding back broader use of AI in radiology is payment for clinical use of the algorithms. In a new paper in npj Digital Medicine, a team of authors including executives from Bayer review the (limited) landscape of AI algorithms that have Medicare reimbursement. They propose a framework in which applications that are proven to provide meaningful benefit to diagnostic performance or new diagnostic information are paid for separately from the underlying imaging study. 

• Image of the Year at SNMMI: A pair of images that illustrate the potential of theranostics won Image of the Year honors at SNMMI 2023. Researchers from the University of California, Davis led by Julie Sutcliffe, PhD, received the award for their work on a novel theranostic pair consisting of ⁶⁸Ga-DOTA-5G and ¹⁷⁷Lu-DOTA-ABM-5G, which they confirmed can successfully detect and visualized targeted therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer. They have imaged 17 patients and treated 14 so far in their phase I clinical trial. 

• Flurpiridaz PET for Obese Patients: PET with the ¹⁸F-flurpiridaz radiotracer was more accurate in detecting coronary artery disease in obese patients than SPECT MPI, researchers said in a paper at SNMMI 2023. In a study of 298 obese patients, PET ¹⁸F-flurpiridaz turned in higher sensitivity than SPECT MPI (77% vs. 69.2%) as well as specificity (67% vs. 61.9%). The results build on research presented last year on ¹⁸F-flurpiridaz, which is being developed by GE HealthCare and Lantheus. 

• EchoNous Partners with UltraSight: Handheld echo ultrasound firms are partnering with AI developers at a rapid clip. The latest deal is between POCUS device firm EchoNous and cardiac AI guidance firm UltraSight, which will combine their technologies in a deal designed to enable more healthcare providers to perform cardiac ultrasound. Other recent tie-ups in this space include GE HealthCare’s acquisition of Caption Health and Philips’ purchase of DiA Imaging Analysis.  

• Nothing Like the Human Touch: Patient portals are great, but sometimes there’s no substitute for human contact. Patients who spoke with a clinician about serious findings on CT lung cancer screening exams were 3 times more likely to comply with follow-up recommendations compared to those whose findings were communicated more passively, such as through online portals, letters, or email. The study in JAMA Network Open confirmed that as findings became more suspicious, clinicians shifted from passive to active ways to communicate. 

• Flywheel Raises $54M: In a massive Series D fundraising round, Flywheel has raised $54M to further commercialize the company’s software platform for using medical imaging data for research and AI development. The round was led by Novalis LifeSciences, as well as NVIDIA’s venture capital arm and other investors including Microsoft. Flywheel’s offerings enable users to access, curate, and standardize data for research use, such as its recent federated breast imaging data network. 

• Accurate AI Detects Lung Cancer: In another study examining the impact of AI on radiologist performance, South Korean researchers found that radiologists using a more accurate AI model to detect lung cancer on chest X-rays had higher per-lesion sensitivity than those with a low-accuracy algorithm (0.63 vs. 0.53). Specificity was also better (0.94 vs. 0.88). Writing in Radiology, researchers said the findings show that AI only helps when its diagnostic performance meets or exceeds that of the human reader.

• Prenuvo’s Longevity Tie-Up: Full-body MRI screening company Prenuvo has found a new partner in its quest to advance longevity imaging: Cenegenics, which describes itself as a performance health age management platform. Cenegenics creates personalized programs for its patients that monitor over 90 biomarkers to “slow down the biological aging process,” and Prenuvo scans will be offered to Cenegenics customers at certain locations. Prenuvo raised a $70M Series A round in October 2022. 

• GE Signs Deal with DuPuy: GE HealthCare has signed a deal with DePuy Synthes to supply its OEC 3D surgical C-arms for use by DePuy’s customers, particularly in spine surgery. GE’s C-arm is a mobile cone-beam CT system that enables intraoperative visualization of 3D volumes and 2D high-definition images while covering a large anatomical field of view. It includes features for image analysis, noise reduction, intraoperative review, and workflow enhancement. 

• 18F-GP1 PET/CTA for Coronary Thrombosis: A team of international researchers found that coronary 18F-GP1 PET/CT angiography is the first noninvasive technique that can identify coronary thrombosis in patients with acute myocardial infarction, suggesting that the novel PET radiotracer could improve heart attack diagnosis and clinical decision making. The researchers performed 18F-GP1 PET/CTA on 99 patients with or without acute MI, finding that 18F-GP1 uptake was visible in 80% of culprit lesions in the MI patients. 

• Alpha Nodus Updates Prior Auth: AI software developer Alpha Nodus has made enhancements to its Gravity software for automating prior authorization. Alpha Nodus integrates with RIS, and the company says Gravity can automate 80% of prior auth requests in seconds; the latest version features a new user interface designed specifically to enable staff and AI to work cooperatively. The new version also bundles similar tasks, such as calls to the same insurance carrier. 

Arterys’ Top Imaging Trends

With ongoing radiologist shortages and higher rates of burnout, there’s a great need for fast, effective, efficient medical imaging technologies – and those factors are driving medical imaging biggest trends detailed in this Arterys report.

Next-Generation Radiology Reporting

Listen to the conversation in this webinar recording and hear from PACS administrator Griff R. Van Dusen of Memorial Health System how Nuance PowerScribe One’s next-generation reporting experience helps streamline workflow and improve report quality so radiologists can get more done in less time.

The Essence of Visage

What impact is Visage 7 Enterprise Imaging Platform having on healthcare enterprises? Find out from Visage customers in their own words how Visage 7 can help you eliminate your legacy PACS.

The Resource Wire

• AI-supported digital applications are expected to transform radiology, but providers need motivation and incentives to adopt them. In this article in npj Digital Medicine, authors including executives from Bayer propose a framework to guide payers and AI developers in adoption of radiology AI. 

• Curious how certain your AI is about its own finding? Annalise.ai’s confidence bar displays the likelihood of each finding and the AI model’s level of certainty, helping clinicians perform their interpretations with greater confidence.

• Medical image sharing technology from Intelerad made it possible to find faster organ matches at Gift of Life Michigan. Medical images of organ viability are now available with other clinical data, speeding the match between donor and recipient. 

• Did you know one-quarter of healthcare organizations have experienced a cyber-attack in the last year? This Change Healthcare animation explains how third party-certified cloud-native enterprise imaging can help secure IT infrastructure that might be exposed with re-platformed imaging systems.

• SOIN Soluciones Integrales of Costa Rica turned to Merge enterprise imaging solutions from Merative when it wanted to modernize the imaging environments of 50 hospitals across the country. Download this PDF white paper to find out how they did it.

• The flow of new AI applications makes it hard for radiology groups to determine which tools would help them and how IT teams can handle increased AI adoption. In this Blackford Analysis white paper, radiology and IT leaders from NYU and Canopy Partners share how a platform approach alongside a curated marketplace can help solve these challenges.

• Today’s state-of-the-art CT scanners are advancing diagnostic capabilities by leveraging spectral acquisition to enhance lesion detection, tissue characterization, and metal artifact reduction. Learn about photon-counting CT’s potential in this GE HealthCare white paper. 

• How patients interact with a medical device can have as much impact as the device itself. Check out this Q&A with Hyperfine Lead Product Designer Corinne Hay to learn how human factors influence the design of everything from prescription containers to portable MRI systems.

• See how adopting ClearRead CT allowed Michigan’s Regional Medical Imaging’s radiologists to complete their chest CT reads faster and more accurately in this Riverain Technologies case study.

• See what UC Davis has to say about United Imaging’s EXPLORER Total Body Scanner, the first whole-body PET.

• Telemedicine Clinic is a leading teleradiology provider in Europe, and it saw a 10% increase in productivity after partnering with Enlitic and its Curie|ENDEX technology for eliminating data variability and standardizing hanging protocols. 

• See how Dubai-based healthcare leader Aster DM Healthcare leveraged the CARPL platform to connect its doctors, data scientists, and imaging workflows, and support its AI projects and development infrastructure.

• Subtle Medical has been named to CB Insights’ 2023 list of top 100 AI companies worldwide. The laureates were picked from a pool of nearly 9k companies, and were chosen based on criteria developed by CB Insights that included R&D activity, business relationships, investor profiles, and technology novelty and market potential. 

• What is theranostics, and how is it changing oncology patient care? Theranostics delivers precision therapy that’s personalized to every patient with targeted radioligand treatment. Learn more about theranostics and how Siemens Healthineers can support your Theranostics journey by offering precision oncology tools that cater to every step of the care pathway.