Gaining Momentum: At RSNA 2009, the Medical Imaging Community Began the Slow Climb out of a Bleak Year (Technology Trends) (Report‪)‬

Communication of radiologic results and X-ray dose reduction strategies took center stage at the 95th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Held from Nov. 29 to Dec. 4, 2009 at McCormick Place, in Chicago, IL, the annual meeting conveyed a sense of hope as the medical imaging community pulled itself out of a tumultuous 2008 fraught with layoffs, sagging profit margins and increased governmental scrutiny of medical imaging and its effects. These leaner, meaner corporate entities are now ready to address the challenges that will face radiologists in 2010 and beyond. In the realm of X-ray dose reduction, every major computed tomography (CT) vendor showed some form of iterative reconstruction software in order to drive down the dose on new CT scanners. Other hot topics on the exhibit floor were picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) integration tools to bring disparate systems across a network into harmony. Other vendors demonstrated better integration of advanced visualization tools on the PACS workstation itself, perhaps signaling an end to the era of using a separate workstation for advanced reconstruction. In the women's health arena, several vendors demonstrated their latest digital mammography systems, which will be platforms for tomosynthesis, which finally seems to be ready for primetime utilization.