Doctors have come up with a revolutionary new mammogram that is radiation and pain free! They are using ultrasound technology to detect tumors in the breast. Radiologists from the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, USA, suspend a woman’s breasts in water and fire ultrasound rays through them to generate images of the breast tissue. Not only is the new method pain free, it is said to be more accurate at picking up cancer than a traditional mammogram and uses no radiation so it’s safer for the patient.

Three London-based cardio anaesthetists have developed the world’s first virtual heart, known as HeartWorks. This virtual heart is a realistic computer generated model of the heart and an echocardiology simulator. By using it, medical students will be able to practice peri-operative transeosophagael echocardiology (an ultrasonic imaging technique) skills for patients with heart disease.

A team of researchers from the US National Cancer Institute and Columbia University found that the average range of radiation exposure from getting a coronary calcium scan after every five years would cause 42% additional cases of cancer among 100,000 men and 62 additional cases among 100,000 women. The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends against using CT scans in screening programs, and the American Heart Association says they should be used for “selected individuals” at intermediate risk.

Hologic has received approval from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for R2 DigitalNow HD software that allows radiologists to improve the analysis of mammograms. Marketing director Jim Culley said that a large number of screening sites in the US use analog photographs, which can lose image quality when they are digitized. R2 DigitalNow HD can digitize older film-based mammograms, while retaining image quality.

A study conducted by Statistics Canada in 2008 indicated that 72% of women aged between 50 and 69 reported having a mammogram over the past two years. However, only 40% of adults over 50 years of age are screened regularly for colorectal cancer, even though early testing can sometimes prevent cancer.