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FFR-CT Reduces Invasive Angio | Isotope Shortage?
October 21, 2024
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Together with
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“[T]he study … provides important information on the diagnostic yield of CT-FFR together with CCTA in the diagnosis of obstructive CAD, potentially reducing ineffective downstream invasive testing.”
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Gabija Pundziute-do Prado, MD, PhD, in a commentary on a new study on FFR-CT.
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How can more effective data migration and standardization strategies help hospitals and radiology practices operate more efficiently? We talked to Enlitic Chief Strategy Officer Steve Rankin in this episode of The Imaging Wire Show.
What are micro-workflows, and how do they affect healthcare efficiency? Learn about micro-workflows and how they can give you actionable insights and automated optimization to improve your efficiency in this Imaging Wire article by Paragon Health IT.
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Performing automated CT-derived fractional flow reserve with Shukun Technology’s software reduced referrals to invasive coronary angiography by 19% in a new study in Radiology. The findings suggest that software-based FFR-CT can serve a gatekeeper role in managing workup of patients with suspected coronary artery disease.
Cardiac CT has been a revolutionary tool for assessing people with heart problems, evolving rapidly into a first-line modality that’s eclipsed other more traditional imaging technologies.
- But CCTA’s prowess also has a downside – more referrals to invasive coronary angiography, in some cases for patients without obstructive disease.
Rising to this challenge is FFR-CT, which uses automated software to calculate maximum blood flow in the coronary arteries and detect dangerous coronary lesions that could be early signs of a cardiac event.
- The segment to date has been dominated by HeartFlow, thanks to its early start in the field: its FFRCT software got FDA clearance in 2014 and the company has used its dominance to build a massive cash position.
In the new China CT-FFR Study 3, researchers in China used another FFR-CT application, Shukun’s skCT-FFR, and compared angio referral rates for 5.3k patients with suspected coronary artery disease who were scanned with either CCTA alone or CCTA and FFR-CT. They found …
- Referral rates were lower for those who got FFR-CT (10% vs. 12.4%), a 19% relative difference.
- Fewer cardiac events occurred in the FFR-CT group at one year (0.5% vs. 1.1%).
- There was no statistically significant difference in major adverse cardiac event rates at 90 days (0.5% vs. 0.8%, p=0.12) and one year (2.9% vs. 2.8%, p=0.9).
Shukun is not as well known in the West as other developers of FFR-CT software like HeartFlow, but the company has raised over $250M to date – enough to land it in the top echelon of AI developers.
- One advantage of Shukun that was evident with the new study is that image processing was performed on-site, rather than being shipped off-site as is the case with other applications.
The Takeaway
The study shows that FFR-CT can make cardiac CT more precise while tamping down on referrals to invasive angiography that have come from growing CT use. The results should also help put Shukun on the radar of many industry observers in a segment that so far has been dominated by HeartFlow.
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A Cloud-Native Foundation for Your Imaging Needs
Merge by Merative’s Merge Imaging Suite is built on a cloud-native foundation to address your imaging needs today, providing an intuitive, feature-rich array of solutions to help you enjoy a seamless and frictionless workflow experience. Learn more about it today.
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Request an RSNA Meeting with TeraRecon
RSNA 2024 will be here before you know it. Come explore TeraRecon’s latest updates and find out why the company is an award-winning solution provider for AI-empowered radiology, oncology, cardiology, neurology, and vascular surgery.
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Build Intelligent Connections at RSNA 2024
Visit AGFA HealthCare at booth #2565 at RSNA 2024 to learn how to elevate your radiology practice with enterprise imaging, enabling rapid growth. Find out how their next-generation solutions empower you to read faster and work smarter by scheduling an appointment today.
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- Isotope Shortage Looms? The nuclear medicine and molecular imaging community could be on the verge of another shortage of radioisotopes due to the delayed restart of a key nuclear reactor in the Netherlands. Dutch energy operator Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group said last week that its Petten High Flux Reactor missed an October 10 restart date – as a result there could be shortages of up to 40% in key radioisotopes like Mo-99, the precursor to Tc-99m, the most widely used radioisotope for nuclear cardiac imaging.
- Micro-Workflows Boost Efficiency: Imaging providers are looking for an efficiency edge to manage growing volumes and constrained resources. A new concept called micro-workflows is emerging as a possible solution by enabling the automation of previously manual tasks – enabling providers to pinpoint workflow gaps, troubleshoot issues, and resolve performance bottlenecks. Learn about micro-workflows and how they can provide actionable insights and automated optimization to improve efficiency in this Imaging Wire article by Paragon Health IT.
- New Theranostics Center: GE HealthCare is partnering with University Medicine Essen in Germany on a new theranostics center of excellence. The center will focus on developing new radioisotopes for diagnosis and treatment, with a particular focus on new technologies to enable personalized medicine. GE is delivering a number of new scanners to support the center, including PET/MRI, PET/CT, and SPECT/CT, as well as theranostics software. The center will also collaborate with GE on development of a total-body PET/CT scanner with a long-axis field of view.
- ChatGPT for Differential Diagnoses: Two versions of ChatGPT displayed an “impressive” ability to generate differential diagnoses from published radiology cases, but both still generated hallucinations. Researchers in Radiology had ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4 create three differentials each for 339 radiology cases, with accuracy improving with the newer version (54% vs. 66%). Hallucinated references occurred but dropped with GPT-4 (40% vs. 14%), as did the rate of false statements (16% vs. 4.7%). Despite its flaws, researchers found ChatGPT’s accuracy “remarkable” especially when compared to older non-LLM technology.
- Software for CAC Scoring: Researchers say AI-based automated coronary artery calcium scoring software turned in good accuracy compared to measurements that required manual work by radiologists. In a paper in European Radiology, researchers used Siemens Healthineers’ syngo.via VB60A application for CAC scoring in 4.6k people without symptoms or coronary artery disease. Compared to semi-automated measurements by radiologists, the solution had 91% accuracy and “almost perfect” agreement (kappa=0.913).
- Disparities in CAC Screening: CT scanning for coronary artery calcifications is showing potential as a possible screening test for future cardiovascular disease. But a new study in the American Journal of Medicine suggests that CAC screening isn’t reaching those who need it most. In a study of 627 people in a major metropolitan area, 77% of those screened were White and 98% were English-speaking. These were higher levels than in the local population (50% and 72%), and median income also differed ($94k vs. $81k). The findings reflect broader disparities in healthcare access.
- Chest X-Ray AI Detects Race: Speaking of disparities, a new paper in AJR adds evidence that AI can detect patients’ gender and race just from their chest X-rays. Researchers used different radiomics machine learning algorithms to analyze features on radiographs from 46.1k patients of various backgrounds, finding that AI worked best for predicting gender (AUC=0.91) and less well for predicting race (AUC=0.71). But both findings were high enough to raise bias concerns if radiomics features were used to train disease prediction models.
- iCardio’s FDA Clearance: iCardio.ai received FDA 510(k) clearance for its echocardiography interpretation software, EchoMeasure, which leads with its comprehensive imaging workflow and autonomous preliminary reporting. With the clearance, iCardio will ramp up its commercial operations, following its early integrations at several partner health systems. EchoMeasure will also be used as a foundational algorithm for the company’s forthcoming products, like its structural heart disease suite.
- Synthetic Data Trains AI: Finding enough patient data to train AI algorithms is a constant hassle for developers. Could training with synthetic patient data be a solution? German researchers tried it in a paper in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence, using a generative adversarial network to augment data from MRI scans of 669 real MS patients. The GAN-trained algorithm had better performance for detecting lesions on FLAIR MRI scans (93% vs. 84%) and performance didn’t decline as much when shifting from internal to external datasets. Synthetic training could improve AI generalizability.
- RADPAIR Updates Reporting Software: Radiology reporting software developer RADPAIR has launched version 2.0 of its platform. The new version features an updated interface and is powered by language processing unit inference technology from Silicon Valley AI developer Groq. Using Groq’s LPU technology improves RADPAIR 2.0’s performance, enabling radiologists to generate, edit, and verify reports even faster. RADPAIR earlier this year cemented a relationship to integrate its application with RamSoft’s RIS/PACS software.
- Radin Hires Shapiro as CCO: Radin Health followed up on the recent launch of its all-in-one RIS/PACS and workflow platform with the hiring of Marc Shapiro as chief commercial officer. Shapiro has 30 years of experience in healthcare sales, marketing, and business development, and prior to joining Radin served in executive roles at Philips. He will focus on expanding Radin’s focus on imaging centers and teleradiology practices.
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AI-Empowered CT Workflow
CT systems from United Imaging are designed for high image quality and low dose, and their AI-empowered workflow enables fast and reproducible positioning, helping you image patients with confidence. Learn more on this page.
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Redefining the Value of AI
Check out the next Road to RSNA virtual session from Microsoft at 11 am ET on October 23 to learn more about workflow‑integrated AI and how radiology teams and organizations can realize value quickly with a platform approach.
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Unprecedented Insights Made Possible with AI
With the largest normative dataset of whole-body imaging in the world, Prenuvo’s AI researchers partner with the best academic minds to understand – like never before – what “normal” aging means. Learn about their work today.
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- Automated MSK Measurements: BoneMetrics from Gleamer is an automated AI solution that can help diagnose scoliosis by automating Cobb angle calculations on images acquired with X-ray and EOS systems. Learn more about how it works today.
- Apple Vision Pro and Radiology: The Apple Vision Pro headset has the potential to revolutionize how radiologists interact with medical images. In this Imaging Wire Show episode, we talked to radiologist Paul Murphy, MD, and Steve Deaton of Visage Imaging about its exciting future.
- Improving Your Mammography Workflow: Want to learn how AI can relieve pressure in your mammography department? Watch this on-demand webinar hosted by Blackford featuring a panel discussing the importance of assessing breast density, image quality reporting, and prioritizing studies.
- The Clinical Value of Soft-Tissue Chest X-Ray: Soft-tissue techniques can improve the visibility and accuracy of chest X-ray. Learn about two important soft-tissue methods – bone suppression and dual-energy subtraction – in this white paper from Riverain Technologies.
- All Your Data in One Place: Mach7’s Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) is a powerful data management and workflow orchestration technology built for the future. Learn how it can help you drive better patient care by centralizing all your data in one place.
- The Importance of Architecture in Healthcare: Technology is pivotal in providing efficient, secure, and scalable solutions in healthcare. At the core of this digital transformation is the architecture of healthcare software. Learn how software architecture and containerization are revolutionizing healthcare in this blog from Enlitic.
- Connect with Intelerad at RSNA 2024: Connect with Intelerad at RSNA 2024 to see how they can empower your radiology team to deliver faster, more accurate diagnostics. Visit them at booth #6113 to see how they’re solving everyday radiology workflow challenges with scalable, cloud-based solutions.
- Impact of AI on Breast Cancer Screening: How is AI changing the breast cancer screening paradigm? In this October 23 webinar hosted by Calantic by Bayer, hear an expert panel review the current role of AI in breast cancer screening, its impact on workflow, and future directions.
- Faster MRI Scans with No Compromise: What if you could speed up your MRI scans with no compromise on image quality? In this video, hear from SpinTech MRI how their STAGE software is making this vision a reality.
- Enhancing Patient Experience and Streamlining Operations: Jefferson County Health Center transformed their image exchange by eliminating the need for CDs, saving over 1,000 staff hours annually. This shift improved radiology patient satisfaction scores by 7.6%. Learn how JCHC enhanced patient care and operational efficiency with PocketHealth.
- Focus on Mammography Workflow: Mammography workflow is key to providing high-quality breast imaging services. In this Imaging Wire Show, we talked with Christie Devine of Siemens Healthineers about how recent advances in mammography workflow are leading to more effective mammography technologists — and happier patients.
- Presenting Unboxing AI: Check out CARPL’s video series, Unboxing AI, featuring experts discussing AI and its future in radiology. The next episode on October 25 features radiologist Lawrence Tanenbaum, MD – reserve your seat today.
- Give Patients a Clear Path to Accessing Medical Data: Clearpath is a simple integration that empowers digital delivery of medical records and images. Request a demo today to find out how you can ditch the disc and give your patients and third parties instant access to digital data.
- What Is Cloud Computing? What do you know about cloud computing and its role in healthcare? Check out this article by Sham Sokka, PhD, of DeepHealth to learn how cloud computing is helping hospitals adopt new AI technologies that enhance patient care.
- Digital Tools for Heart Failure: Clinicians have a growing array of digital tools for assessing patients with suspected heart failure. A new review article in Lancet Digital Health takes stock of some of the options, including echo AI tools like those from Us2.ai.
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