Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more

New England Journal of Medicine

IgG4-related means mysterious

Emory rheumatologist Arezou Khosroshahi was the lead author on a differential diagnosis case report in New England Journal of Medicine published in October, which describes an example of IgG4-related disease. This autoimmune condition’s name was agreed upon only recently, at an international conference she co-directed in 2011.

This review calls IgG4-related disease an “orphan disease with many faces.” It sounds like each case has the potential to be an episode of House. As Khosroshahi explains:

“Most patients undergo invasive procedures for resection or biopsy of the affected organ to exclude other conditions. Unfortunately, most of those patients get dismissed by the clinicians, given the good news that their disease was not malignancy. Many of them have recurrence of the condition in other organs after a few months or years.”

Arezou Khosroshahi, MD

Rheumatologist Arezou Khosroshahi, MD

In the case report, a woman was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, because of shoulder and abdominal pain and an accumulation of fluid around her lungs. Surgeons removed a softball-sized mass from her right lung. The mass did not appear to be cancerous, but instead seemed to be the result of some kind of fibrous inflammation, and the patient was treated with antibiotics. Read more

Posted on by Quinn Eastman in Immunology 3 Comments

Medical imaging experts on quality and safety

Recently, a great deal of media coverage has focused on radiological services such as CT scans, and questions have been raised over the safety related to the increasing use of those services and the amount of radiation they deliver.

Medical imaging procedures, such as CT or CAT scans, are considered by experts to be highly useful for the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of many medical conditions including cancer, heart disease, trauma, and liver and kidney disease. The recent increase in attention and exposure via the media is valuable, say Emory experts, in highlighting rapidly improving imaging technologies and the importance of ensuring such scans are performed in a setting where there is carefully monitoring to minimize associated radiation exposure.

CT scanner

CT scanner

Emory’s Department of Radiology is well-recognized for its expertise in all subspecialty areas of radiology and medical imaging, as well as its breadth and depth of medical physicists, researchers and educators.

Carolyn Meltzer, MD, William P. Timmie Professor and chair of the Department of Radiology in Emory’s School of Medicine, says, “Emory radiologists are the physician experts in imaging, most receiving more than 13 years of extensive training. In fact, radiologists receive substantive training in radiation biology and safety that is linked to their board certification.”

According to Kimberly Applegate, MD, vice chair of Quality and Safety for Emory’s Department of Radiology, commented on safety recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. She wrote in the article, “The medical community should continue to work together across disciplines to use existing knowledge about radiation protection to ensure that imaging is warranted and optimized.”

When patients do need imaging, they should ask if the imaging personnel are credentialed and the protocols used are weight-based and indication-based, to ensure quality, notes Applegate. Emory subspecialty radiologists work in multidisciplinary clinical teams to make sure that imaging is used appropriately, she adds.

In order to minimize radiation exposure, Emory Radiology adheres to the following guidelines: CT protocols are optimized by subspecialty-trained radiologists to ensure quality and safe imaging procedures. Further, explains Applegate, low radiation exam protocols are used when appropriate and CTs or X-rays are not performed on pregnant patients unless it is a medical emergency.

Further, in accordance with ACR (American College of Radiology) guidelines, Emory Radiology does not offer whole body screening CT exams. These tests result in unnecessary radiation and often lead to additional unneeded tests, says Applegate.

Click here for more information about radiation safety and what Emory is doing to educate all stakeholders in medical imaging and to ensure safe, high quality imaging. To learn more about medical imaging and expected radiation levels visit RadiologyInfo.

For a summary of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) report on American radiation exposure from all sources, including medical imaging, visit The NCRP report 160: Ionizing Radiation Exposure of the Population of the United States (2009).

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