CT scans

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Denver Zoo's Tilting Angelfish Gets a CT Scan

Turns out to be too much gas; jokes about critter having better health insurance than most ensue

(Newser) - A fancy-looking French angelfish that was found one day with a funny float has its buoyancy back after taking some time from its tropical trappings to get a CT scan at the Denver Zoo. A zoo worker recently noticed the blue-and-yellow fish was swimming with a tilt, prompting a visit...

Mummy That Escaped Others' Fate Gives Up Secrets

Amenhotep I was never unwrapped, unlike other pharaohs found in 19th, 20th centuries

(Newser) - Amenhotep I ruled Egypt from 1525 to 1504 BC, and his mummy managed to escape the fate of many others: Though it was discovered in 1881, it was never unwrapped in modern times, with a press release saying it's the only royal mummy found in the 19th and 20th...

Zoo Performs First-Ever Rhino CT Scan

It was easier to bring the scanner to the rhino than the other way around

(Newser) - A rhinoceros at a suburban Chicago zoo has undergone what's believed to be the first CT scan performed on the species. It was no easy task. Layla is 7 1/2 years old and 2,300 pounds and lives at Brookfield Zoo. Zoo officials say the scan was needed to...

Surprise: Dodos Were Actually Pretty Smart
 Surprise: Dodos Were 
 Actually Pretty Smart 
NEW STUDY

Surprise: Dodos Were Actually Pretty Smart

They also had an unusually keen sense of smell

(Newser) - The poor dodo bird. It wasn't enough that the humans who happened upon the exotic creatures on the island of Mauritius in the late 1500s slaughtered them for food and brought about their extinction less than 100 years later, but we then started using their name to be synonymous...

Longtime Smokers Need Yearly CT Scan: US Panel

Feds think move will save 20K lives a year

(Newser) - Longtime heavy smokers should add a yearly chore to their medical regimen, says an influential federal panel: Get a CT scan. Specifically, the panel recommends that people 55 to 79 who have smoked a pack a day for 30 years should get the tests, even if they've long since...

Doctors: 90+ Procedures Are Overkill, Drive Health Costs

New list outlines the overused, useless, and harmful

(Newser) - A group of doctors have assembled a list of more than 90 medical procedures that are overused, often useless, and even harmful, in a bid to drive Americans toward consuming less care. The report, from ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely program calls out everything from Pap tests (which it argues...

MRI Machines Go Super-Size for Chubbier US

Accommodating obesity 'a design requirement'

(Newser) - As the US gets heavier, makers of MRI machines and other medical scanners are rushing to cope—by literally enlarging their equipment. But for some Americans, the process isn't going fast enough. The Wall Street Journal recounts the story of a 630-pound Maryland mechanic who's been out of...

Kids' CT Scans Boost Cancer Risk
 Kids' CT Scans 
 Boost Cancer Risk 

study says

Kids' CT Scans Boost Cancer Risk

But in many cases, 'benefits outweigh risks': researcher

(Newser) - The radiation from CT scans can increase a child's risk of brain cancer and leukemia, a study finds, with risk increasing along with the amount of radiation. The radiation in two or three CT scans triples brain cancer risk for a kid under 15, while five to 10 scans...

CT Scans Cut Lung Cancer Deaths 20%

They're better than X-rays at catching tumors early: Study

(Newser) - CT scans of smokers can detect lung cancer at an early phase and cut the death rate by 20%, says a new study. Duke University researchers found that the scans were much better than regular chest X-rays at catching tumors at a more treatable phase, reports USA Today . The results...

CT Scan Overuse Raises Radiation, Cancer Fears

The US gets more radiation from scans than any country

(Newser) - The top radiation source Americans should be worrying about isn't airport scanners or microwaves—it's medical tests. The US leads the world in the amount of radiation its population gets from medical scans, and the average American's dose has grown more than sixfold in recent decades. Patients are being given...

In Wake of Radiation ODs, CT Scans Get New Rules

New scanners will be preset, older ones will be retrofitted

(Newser) - CT scans will come with new safeguards ordered by the FDA yesterday, following accidental radiation overdoses last year at hospitals in California and Alabama. The agency is also looking at software fixes for existing equipment to reduce the possibility of unsafe dosage, reports the the Los Angeles Times , and encouraging...

CT Scans Cause Cancer: Study
 CT Scans Cause Cancer: Study 

CT Scans Cause Cancer: Study

Scans could be causing 14,500 deaths annually, researchers say

(Newser) - The overuse of CT scans could be causing 14,500 cancer deaths a year, according to two studies published today. Researchers found that machines varied widely in how much radiation they exposed patients to, often leading to big, hidden risk. A typical chest scan, for example, is the equivalent of...

Probe of Radiation ODs Spreads to 4 Sites

Agency suspects brainb scan problem could be nationwide

(Newser) - The FDA has widened a probe into radiation overdoses received during brain scans to include four hospitals, and now suspects the problem could be nationwide. Three hospitals in Los Angeles County and one in Alabama are being investigated after patients received up to eight times the normal amount of radiation...

Heart Disease: Pharaohs Had It, Too
 Heart Disease: 
 Pharaohs Had It, Too 
RE-EXAMINING THE FOOD PYRAMID

Heart Disease: Pharaohs Had It, Too

'Part of the human condition,' so fast food not only culprit

(Newser) - In a finding that pokes holes in the thinking that our modern fast-food lifestyle is behind heart disease, scientists have discovered that Egypt’s mummies, too, had hardened arteries. “Atherosclerosis is not just a disease of modern times,” one researcher tells WebMD . “It’s part of the...

LA Patients Get Deadly Blast of Radiation in Screw-Up

Hospital hits hundreds of stroke patients with 8 times the normal dose

(Newser) - A mistake at LA’s famed Cedars-Sinai hospital has subjected more than 200 patients to dangerous levels of radiation. Everyone who has come to the hospital with a suspected stroke since February 2008 has gotten eight times the normal dose of radiation, the LA Times reports. That was when technicians...

Costs Soar as Docs Order and Perform Tests
Costs Soar as Docs Order and Perform Tests
investigation

Costs Soar as Docs Order and Perform Tests

Fishy practice highlights challenge of medical regulation

(Newser) - As Congress wrestles with health-care reform, studies show it’s tough to regulate the status quo: Doctors’ “self-referrals” for medical imaging have continued despite efforts to legislate against them, the Washington Post reports. Doctors who own the equipment that scans patients stand to make more cash—and tend to...

Troop Autopsies Yield Life-Saving Clues

Decision to autopsy all US war dead helps military eliminate equipment flaws

(Newser) - Navy pathologist Capt Craig T. Mallak's groundbreaking decision to order autopsies on every US casualty killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped save the lives of American troops, the New York Times reports. The autopsies—and, since 2004, CT scans—have allowed the military to build a huge database on...

Nefertiti Bust May Be Ancient 'Makeover'

(Newser) - Nefertiti’s image as a flawless beauty of antiquity may not be entirely accurate, Reuters reports. New computer scans reveal a slightly different face at the core layer of the Egyptian queen’s famous 3,300-year-old bust than the finely chiseled planes of the statue’s surface—one with a...

Study Backs Virtual Colonoscopy

Computer scan as effective as invasive procedure

(Newser) - A new study has found a virtual colonoscopy to be almost as effective as a conventional invasive procedure in detecting colon cancer, USA Today reports. Virtual colonoscopies, using scans and computer imaging, discovered 90% of the cancers located by regular colonoscopies, in which a scope is physically passed through the...

Upbeat Cancer Research Funded by Big Tobacco

Cigarette bucks paid for controversial lung cancer study

(Newser) - Tobacco money paid for research that said CT scans could prevent 80% of lung cancer deaths, the New York Times reports. The news has shocked cancer researchers, who are generally loathe to have anything to do with cigarette companies. “If you’re using blood money, you need to tell...

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