Capacity Prioritization Initiative Reduced the Wait Time for Port Placement and Facilitated Increased Volume of Port Placements at a Large County Health System.

Description Of The Problem: Wait time from request to placement of ports in interventional radiology had increased from 14 to 27 days over a 4-month period. The goal of this project was to reduce the wait time by 15% within 4 months while accommodating additional volume.

Instituional Approach To Address Problem: Capacity analysis revealed 2 bottlenecks: (1) inadequate provider capacity for preprocedural visits in interventional radiology clinic and (2) inadequate number of spots for port placement in the angiography schedule.

Liquid Biopsy for Cancer: Review and Implications for the Radiologist.

Imaging and image-guided procedures play an imperative role in the screening, diagnosis, and surveillance of cancer. Although emerging imaging techniques now enable more precise molecular characterization of tumors, multigenetic tumor profiling for targeted therapeutic selection remains limited to direct tissue acquisition. Even in the context of targeted therapy, tumors adapt to acquire resistance.

Comprehensive review of typical and atypical pathology of the appendix on CT: cases with clinical implications.

Acute appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency in the United States with approximately 250,000 cases annually. Computed Tomography (CT) has emerged as the most accurate diagnostic test to triage these patients for emergent surgery. Although the radiology search pattern is prioritized to detect an inflamed appendix, not all appearances equate to a typical surgical appendicitis.

MR Neurographic Evaluation of Facial and Neck Pain: Normal and Abnormal Craniospinal Nerves below the Skull Base.

Cranial nerve disease outside the skull base is a common cause of facial and/or neck pain, which causes significant disability for patients and frustration for clinicians. Neuropathy in this region can be traumatic, idiopathic, or iatrogenic secondary to dental and surgical procedures. MR neurography is a modification of conventional MRI techniques dedicated to evaluation of peripheral nerves and is being increasingly used for imaging of peripheral neuropathies at various sites in the body.

The Maryland self-referral law: history and implications.

Many previous studies have shown that nonradiologist physicians who can refer advanced MRI and CT examinations to themselves or within their practices use these modalities at a much higher rate than those who refer their examinations to unaffiliated radiology facilities. This led Maryland to pass a unique self-referral law in 1993 to directly address self-referred advanced imaging. The authors discuss the politics and economics of self-referral and provide a comprehensive review of the creation, progression, and impact of this landmark law.

Blockade of VEGFR2 and not VEGFR1 can limit diet-induced fat tissue expansion: role of local versus bone marrow-derived endothelial cells.

Background: We investigated if new vessel formation in fat involves the contribution of local tissue-derived endothelial cells (i.e., angiogenesis) or bone marrow-derived cells (BMDCs, i.