Top 10 most-clicked stories of 2011
December 29, 2011
by Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor
A radiologist's office server hacked to play the world's best-selling video game. The launch of MRI-compatible pacemakers. The rising popularity of virtual colonoscopies. And a sobering forecast for the future of proton therapy. These were some of our readers' favorite stories in 2011.
10. Fears of an exploding MRI
The year opened with a bang -- almost. In January, officials in a town near St. Louis had to evacuate residents from their block, after experts worried a storm-damaged MRI might explode. The town's fire department made the call after a local imaging center's technicians determined there was a very small possibility an MRI unit would burst during decommissioning, as its ventilation system was damaged by a tornado that struck the facility on New Year's Eve. But nothing happened: and the residents were quickly allowed to return to their homes. However, the crisis did bring about a bit of neighborliness. During the emergency, a local Holiday Inn Viking offered rooms to families forced to flee over the explosion risk.
Read the story here
9. The Fukushima catastrophe
On March 11, a 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, unleashing a tsunami that devastated the island country, killing thousands and costing billions of dollars in damages. But what held the world's attention for months was the fate of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The plant lost power when the waves hit, causing three of its reactors to experience a full meltdown and making it the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. A few days after the tsunami struck, we reported on rising radiation levels at the plant -- at one point, radiation levels rose to 400 millisieverts an hour in some sections. Today, workers are still busy trying to fully decommission the plant, a process that's expected to take three to four decades.
Read the story here
8. Hackers hijack radiology office to play Call of Duty
Weird, but true. Scandinavian hackers hijacked the servers of a New Hampshire radiology office, which reportedly contained Social Security numbers and other private info for hundreds of thousands of patients. Why did they do it? Investigators said they just wanted to find space to play "Call of Duty: Black Ops," a military first-person shooter that was then the best-selling video game in the world. (An honor now ceded to a sequel, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.")
Read the story here
7. Hospital IT budgets shift away from PACS
The federal government began doling out Meaningful Use incentive payments to doctors this year. The program could mean substantial payments for some. Those who adopt electronic health records stand to earn $44,000 over the life of the program. While these incentives are driving providers to invest in IT, some researchers think it comes at a cost to PACS vendors. A market research report from Millennium Research Group, published in February, argued that these vendors will scrap over a "shrinking pie" as more money is spent on getting EHRs up to snuff.
Read the story here
6. Proton therapy's exclusive club
Since the first commercial proton therapy centers came online in the early 1990s, they have had construction costs that have rivaled the budgets of Hollywood blockbusters. Quoted all-cost figures routinely hover around $200 million (compare that with "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol"'s reported budget of $145 million.) Although new, smaller-footprint technologies now promise substantially cheaper upfront investments, it's still unclear how many more of the high-tech cancer treatment centers the United States will see (currently, there are 9 with a handful in development). In covering a series of talks at the Proton Therapy Centers conference in February, we reported on conservative projections that the U.S. will be home to no more than 20 or 30 such centers over the next decade, as capital costs have rocketed.
Read the story here
5. FDA's medical device approval process annoys everyone
The Food and Drug Administration's approval process for moderate-risk medical devices, called the 510(k) process, pleases almost nobody. Industry thinks it's slow, cumbersome and inconsistent, while consumer advocates complain that it fails to protect patients from unsafe devices. At the beginning of the year, the agency unveiled a slew of changes it's making to the 35-year-old process, an update on proposals it first floated in summer 2010. But the updates still pretty much irked a lot of people, with Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, saying the agency was still not being "forceful enough about improving the safety and effectiveness of new devices."
Read the story here
4. NYC women have long wait for mammograms
A New York City audit found long wait times for mammograms at some hospitals in the city. At one hospital, women reportedly had to wait around five months before they could get a scan. All told, about three of the nine hospitals inspected had waiting times longer than the system's two-week maximum, according to the audit, which was carried out by City Comptroller John C. Liu's office. But the data came from fiscal 2009, and the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the hospitals, said it was all out-of-date, and improvements had been made since the audit was done. "That means that the great majority of HHC patients are able to receive mammography within the 14-day target, even some on the same day of request," HHC said.
Read the story here
3. A shoulder massage device can kill you
If you have the ShoulderFlex Massager, you should throw it out. In fact, you should tear it up before you throw it out so no one else can use it. That was the message given out by the Food and Drug Administration in a recall notice posted in August, after reports surfaced on one person getting strangled by the device. Just the other week, the FDA had to re-post its warning after it discovered that the company that sold the device, King International, went out of business and had not "followed through with recall procedures."
Read the story here
2. Another MRI-compatible pacemaker in the works
In February, Medtronic Inc.'s Revo MRI SureScan became the first pacemaker conditionally approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use around MRI scanners. Previously, many patients with implanted cardiac devices were unable to get an MRI scan, as the strong magnetic fields could interfere with the implants. Medtronic estimated about 200,000 patients opted out of MRI scans every year because of this. About six months after the product's release, though, the company announced it was working with the FDA to set up a clinical trial for its second-generation MRI-compatible implant, the Advisa DR MRI SureScan. The trial is expected to wrap up by 2013. But if you really want one, as is often the case, they're already available in Europe.
Read the story here
1. Virtual colonoscopy gets more popular
Screening with CT colongraphy (also called virtual colonoscopy) is not without its critics, and currently Medicare doesn't reimburse it. But diagnostic CTCs (ordered in response to a specific complaint) are often reimbursable, although with Medicare it's subject to regional variations. But that hasn't stopped CTC from spreading. In the most-clicked story of the year, we reported in April that the use of CTC tripled between 2005 and 2008, while reimbursement denials fell. And with only half of the 40 million patients eligible for colorectal screening tests actually undergoing the exams, "the potential for future and dramatic growth of CTC clearly exists," the researchers said.
Read the story here
10. Fears of an exploding MRI
The year opened with a bang -- almost. In January, officials in a town near St. Louis had to evacuate residents from their block, after experts worried a storm-damaged MRI might explode. The town's fire department made the call after a local imaging center's technicians determined there was a very small possibility an MRI unit would burst during decommissioning, as its ventilation system was damaged by a tornado that struck the facility on New Year's Eve. But nothing happened: and the residents were quickly allowed to return to their homes. However, the crisis did bring about a bit of neighborliness. During the emergency, a local Holiday Inn Viking offered rooms to families forced to flee over the explosion risk.
Read the story here
9. The Fukushima catastrophe
On March 11, a 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, unleashing a tsunami that devastated the island country, killing thousands and costing billions of dollars in damages. But what held the world's attention for months was the fate of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The plant lost power when the waves hit, causing three of its reactors to experience a full meltdown and making it the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. A few days after the tsunami struck, we reported on rising radiation levels at the plant -- at one point, radiation levels rose to 400 millisieverts an hour in some sections. Today, workers are still busy trying to fully decommission the plant, a process that's expected to take three to four decades.
Read the story here
8. Hackers hijack radiology office to play Call of Duty
Weird, but true. Scandinavian hackers hijacked the servers of a New Hampshire radiology office, which reportedly contained Social Security numbers and other private info for hundreds of thousands of patients. Why did they do it? Investigators said they just wanted to find space to play "Call of Duty: Black Ops," a military first-person shooter that was then the best-selling video game in the world. (An honor now ceded to a sequel, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.")
Read the story here
7. Hospital IT budgets shift away from PACS
The federal government began doling out Meaningful Use incentive payments to doctors this year. The program could mean substantial payments for some. Those who adopt electronic health records stand to earn $44,000 over the life of the program. While these incentives are driving providers to invest in IT, some researchers think it comes at a cost to PACS vendors. A market research report from Millennium Research Group, published in February, argued that these vendors will scrap over a "shrinking pie" as more money is spent on getting EHRs up to snuff.
Read the story here
6. Proton therapy's exclusive club
Since the first commercial proton therapy centers came online in the early 1990s, they have had construction costs that have rivaled the budgets of Hollywood blockbusters. Quoted all-cost figures routinely hover around $200 million (compare that with "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol"'s reported budget of $145 million.) Although new, smaller-footprint technologies now promise substantially cheaper upfront investments, it's still unclear how many more of the high-tech cancer treatment centers the United States will see (currently, there are 9 with a handful in development). In covering a series of talks at the Proton Therapy Centers conference in February, we reported on conservative projections that the U.S. will be home to no more than 20 or 30 such centers over the next decade, as capital costs have rocketed.
Read the story here
5. FDA's medical device approval process annoys everyone
The Food and Drug Administration's approval process for moderate-risk medical devices, called the 510(k) process, pleases almost nobody. Industry thinks it's slow, cumbersome and inconsistent, while consumer advocates complain that it fails to protect patients from unsafe devices. At the beginning of the year, the agency unveiled a slew of changes it's making to the 35-year-old process, an update on proposals it first floated in summer 2010. But the updates still pretty much irked a lot of people, with Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, saying the agency was still not being "forceful enough about improving the safety and effectiveness of new devices."
Read the story here
4. NYC women have long wait for mammograms
A New York City audit found long wait times for mammograms at some hospitals in the city. At one hospital, women reportedly had to wait around five months before they could get a scan. All told, about three of the nine hospitals inspected had waiting times longer than the system's two-week maximum, according to the audit, which was carried out by City Comptroller John C. Liu's office. But the data came from fiscal 2009, and the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the hospitals, said it was all out-of-date, and improvements had been made since the audit was done. "That means that the great majority of HHC patients are able to receive mammography within the 14-day target, even some on the same day of request," HHC said.
Read the story here
3. A shoulder massage device can kill you
If you have the ShoulderFlex Massager, you should throw it out. In fact, you should tear it up before you throw it out so no one else can use it. That was the message given out by the Food and Drug Administration in a recall notice posted in August, after reports surfaced on one person getting strangled by the device. Just the other week, the FDA had to re-post its warning after it discovered that the company that sold the device, King International, went out of business and had not "followed through with recall procedures."
Read the story here
2. Another MRI-compatible pacemaker in the works
In February, Medtronic Inc.'s Revo MRI SureScan became the first pacemaker conditionally approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use around MRI scanners. Previously, many patients with implanted cardiac devices were unable to get an MRI scan, as the strong magnetic fields could interfere with the implants. Medtronic estimated about 200,000 patients opted out of MRI scans every year because of this. About six months after the product's release, though, the company announced it was working with the FDA to set up a clinical trial for its second-generation MRI-compatible implant, the Advisa DR MRI SureScan. The trial is expected to wrap up by 2013. But if you really want one, as is often the case, they're already available in Europe.
Read the story here
1. Virtual colonoscopy gets more popular
Screening with CT colongraphy (also called virtual colonoscopy) is not without its critics, and currently Medicare doesn't reimburse it. But diagnostic CTCs (ordered in response to a specific complaint) are often reimbursable, although with Medicare it's subject to regional variations. But that hasn't stopped CTC from spreading. In the most-clicked story of the year, we reported in April that the use of CTC tripled between 2005 and 2008, while reimbursement denials fell. And with only half of the 40 million patients eligible for colorectal screening tests actually undergoing the exams, "the potential for future and dramatic growth of CTC clearly exists," the researchers said.
Read the story here