James A. Brink, MD, Radiologist-in-Chief at Massachusetts General Hospital released the following statement on March, 19, 2015:
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Pari Pandharipande, MD, MPH as Director of the MGH Institute for Technology Assessment, succeeding G. Scott Gazelle, MD, MPH, PhD in this role.
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite powerful new medications, the lack of screening and treatment capacity will make it difficult to eliminate the hepatitis C virus in the United States, according to projections presented here at the Liver Meeting 2015.
Current trends show that even after 2020, more than 500,000 people will be unaware that they are infected with hepatitis C, said Jagpreet Chhatwal, PhD, from the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Lifestyle changes play a big role in determining our future health, and the first two we immediately think of are diet and exercise. While these are crucial to our health, a big aspect that isn’t discussed as much is mental health — and similarly, using relaxation techniques to set the stage for better health later down the road.
In a new study out of the Institute for Technology Assessment and the Benson-Henry Institute (BHI) for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, researchers found that people who took part in a relaxation response program used fewer health care services a year later, compared to their use a year before. It proves that learning how to relax — though often not a priority in our busy lives — can be as beneficial to our future health as exercise.
A study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Institute for Technology assessment finds that, after viewing CT scan results, physicians in the emergency departments of four major academic medical centers made key changes in clinical decision-making for patients with symptoms frequently seen in emergency rooms. The study that has been published online in the journal Radiology adds important information to health policy debates regarding the appropriate use of CT scanning.
Sepember 25, 2013 Boston, Massachusetts – Medical tests with greater morbidity are less likely to be completed by patients, and this lack of health maintenance adherence has implications for future health outcomes. Knowing how medical tests may differ in their temporary changes to a patient’s quality of life can help doctors, clinicians and institutions better … Read more
Evan Godt – Health Imaging Jun 06, 2013 Radiologists who have access to patient exposure histories will make recommendations for future imaging that take into account previously incurred imaging risks, even though models of radiation exposure and cancer risk indicate previous imaging should not affect decision making, according to a study published in the June … Read more
Many men with low-risk, localized prostate cancers can safely choose active surveillance or “watchful waiting” instead of undergoing immediate treatment and have better quality of life while reducing health care costs, according to a study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Writing in the June 18 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors said their statistical models showed that “observation is a reasonable and, in some situations, cost-saving alternative to initial treatment” for the estimated 70 percent of men whose cancer is classified as low-risk at diagnosis.
The researchers, led by Julia Hayes, MD, a medical oncologist in the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber, said their findings support observation – active surveillance and watchful waiting – as a reasonable and underused option for men with low-risk disease.
Pari Pandharipande’s AJR article JOURNAL CLUB: How Radiation Exposure Histories Influence Physician Imaging Decisions: A Multicenter Radiologist Survey Study was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal regarding radiation exposure http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578489413973896412.html
Scott Gazelle was recently one of six MGH radiologists inducted as a fellow in the American College of Radiology (ACR). Only 10% of the College’s 34,000 members achieve this distinction. http://www.massgeneral.org/imaging/about/newsarticle.aspx?id=4161
An article from Neurology Today discusses the recent meeting of the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) in which the panel voted that the evidence is inadequate to demonstrate that beta amyloid PET imaging improves Alzheimer outcomes. The article also highlights the findings from a recent white paper completed by ICER evaluating the … Read more
