Annual CT scans can reduce mortality. Boon for pathologists?

[Nilf]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/health/research/05cancer.html?_r=1&ref=health

/discuss

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[pathstudent]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/health/research/05cancer.html?_r=1&ref=health

/discuss

No, unless they own ct scanners.

 

[2121115]

No, unless they own ct scanners.

More CT scans = more biopsies = more 88305's.


Around here the talk is that pulmonary path could be the next GI.

 

[KeratinPearls]

More CT scans = more biopsies = more 88305's.


Around here the talk is that pulmonary path could be the next GI.

Or the next dermpath? Holy cow Im going to do a pulm path fellowship now and then work for a pod lab!

 

[2121115]

Or the next dermpath? Holy cow Im going to do a pulm path fellowship now and then work for a pod lab!

We are now living in the glory days my friend. I raise my glass to your ambitious career aspirations.

Pulmonary pathology will be restored to its rightful place, and it's attendings to their rightful place as the gods of surgical pathology.

 

[yaah]

I feel like most of these people get annual CT scans anyway, because they all have a cough or SOB or whatever. And then whenever they do have a CT there's a nodule that they have to follow.

 

[pathstudent]

I feel like most of these people get annual CT scans anyway, because they all have a cough or SOB or whatever. And then whenever they do have a CT there's a nodule that they have to follow.

At our institution, it seems that if you sneeze, you get a Ct-PET-scan.

Almost all lung cancers get a tissue dx so screening for it early won't increase pathology cases all that much, except maybe a few more benign entities will be biopsied. It certainly won't be like GI. A resident just showed me a community practice GI case where the gastroenterologist did 45 biopsies to map out a MALT lymphoma. The community practice gastro has has own pathology lab/pathologist, which means he billed 45 88305 and 90 88342s on each case (they did a cd3 ad cd20 on every biopsy). The pathology bill on that case would approach 14,000, and that is what medicare would pay. Private insurance might pay closer to 20,000-25,000. Nice compensation for the gastro for one case for one day. He probably pays his pathologist 200k-300k for a year.

The nonsense in GI and Uro has got to stop. I am telling Obama!

 

[KCShaw]

Didn't this same finding come out 10 or 15 years ago? Followed by the CT-scan-vans roaming around looking for victims? Don't recall seeing a long-term follow-up addressing radiation exposure or cost-benefit on that one, either.

Not saying it won't turn into the next great Pap smear-colonoscopy-mammogram campaign, merely that I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[deleted314957]

More CT scans = more biopsies = more 88305's.


Around here the talk is that pulmonary path could be the next GI.

Even better than an 88305. FNA'S with cell blocks 88172,88173,88305
ck7 and TTF immunos for adeno. MOC31and/or BerEp4 if TTF neg.
CK5/6 and p63 for SCC. Neuroendocrine markers for small cell. Just think of the possibilities!

 

[Parts Unknown]

More CT scans = more biopsies = more 88305's.


Around here the talk is that pulmonary path could be the next GI.

More like the next breast. Which send shivers up my spine.

 

[2121115]

The years ahead are going to be the glory years of anatomic pathology as tissue based cancer diagnostics explode. I only hope that pathologists are poised to seize the moment (financially and otherwise).