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The title bar says it all. Any ideas?
What are the current and future technological advancements in radiology?
- Thread starter Substance
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Future trends are very difficult to predict. For example, many predicted the Nuclear Medicine would die out when Ultrasound, CT and MRI came around. This did not happen because of the new applications of NM like nuclear cardiology and PET. Many also predicted that much of CT would be replace by MRI. As it turned out both CT and MRI volumes have exploded. At least in my area, CT volumes have increased much more than MRI volumes.
Here are the biggest changes I have seen in the last two decades:
Invasive diagnostic angiography has been replaced by noninvasive CT and MRI angiography. We used to do abut 20-30 diagnostic angiograms a week 18 years ago. Now we do about 1-3 a week.
PACS has replaced film almost everywhere.
Speech recognition has replaced transcriptionists at many institutions. This trend will continue because it has dramatically decreased report turnaround time. Unfortunately this has come at the expense of radiologist productivity.
Use of CAD (computer aided diagnosis) is now common in Mammography, although it has a very high false positive rate. I do not see it replacing the radiologist any time soon, but I expect applications of CAD to grow in the future.
Use of teleradiology is now almost universal for after hours call. Its use during the day will continue to increase. This may make radiology services a commodity and may drive professional fees down by giving work to the lowest bidder, but no one can be sure what the impact of widespread use of teleradiology will have on our incomes.
The only functional MR imaging that has a significant impact on clinical practice is Diffusion Weighted MRI imaging- it has made it very easy to detect very early CVA. MRI spectroscopy has very little clinical application. fMRI will be a great research tool, but most of it will probably not impact clinical practice.
Disclaimer: These are just my opinions based on my particular experience in a private practice setting. I do not claim to be any expert in this matter. Those at academic centers may have a different perspective.
Here are the biggest changes I have seen in the last two decades:
Invasive diagnostic angiography has been replaced by noninvasive CT and MRI angiography. We used to do abut 20-30 diagnostic angiograms a week 18 years ago. Now we do about 1-3 a week.
PACS has replaced film almost everywhere.
Speech recognition has replaced transcriptionists at many institutions. This trend will continue because it has dramatically decreased report turnaround time. Unfortunately this has come at the expense of radiologist productivity.
Use of CAD (computer aided diagnosis) is now common in Mammography, although it has a very high false positive rate. I do not see it replacing the radiologist any time soon, but I expect applications of CAD to grow in the future.
Use of teleradiology is now almost universal for after hours call. Its use during the day will continue to increase. This may make radiology services a commodity and may drive professional fees down by giving work to the lowest bidder, but no one can be sure what the impact of widespread use of teleradiology will have on our incomes.
The only functional MR imaging that has a significant impact on clinical practice is Diffusion Weighted MRI imaging- it has made it very easy to detect very early CVA. MRI spectroscopy has very little clinical application. fMRI will be a great research tool, but most of it will probably not impact clinical practice.
Disclaimer: These are just my opinions based on my particular experience in a private practice setting. I do not claim to be any expert in this matter. Those at academic centers may have a different perspective.
