A large study presented Sunday at the European Congress of Radiology has determined that Whole Body MRI is the safest and most accurate method of detecting disease pathology in persons who show little or no symptoms. Dr. Andrzej Cieszanowski, a radiologist from the Medical University of Warsaw and one of the authors of the study, [...]
A new Hungarian study published in the journal Current Biology has discovered through MRI that brains of dogs and humans respond similarly upon hearing vocal cues such as crying and laughter. To produce a quality MR image, the person (or animal!) must be able to lie completely still within the scanner. 11 pet dogs participated in [...]
AIM's medical director, head radiologist and inventor of our whole body scan, Dr. Raj Attariwala, is a star on the radio! Dr. Raj, as his patients affectionately call him, was interviewed by Ian Power for CKNW's Talk to the Experts this past Sunday, February 23, about why he set up AIM Medical Imaging, how AIM [...]
A study published today in the Lancet Oncology Journal serves as a fitting follow up to our blog post from last week about when it is appropriate to choose MRI over PET/CT scans. The study, entitled Ionising radiation-free whole-body MRI versus F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT scans for children and young adults with cancer, is essentially a reiteration of the message [...]
One of our patients recently asked Dr. Attariwala some great questions: When is MRI most suitable for diagnostic imaging? What tissues/areas of the body are best imaged with MRI? How does MRI compare with other imaging modalities such as CT, FDG PET and Ultrasound? MRI and Ultrasound are, wherever possible, preferable to CT and PET [...]
The official BC Cancer Statistics offer a sad insight into how many lives have been affected--and ultimately lost--to cancer in this province. The table below represents the statistics of Residual Life Expectancy, Potential Years of Life Lost and Number of Deaths for all cancer deaths reported in British Columbia in 2011. Residual Life Expectancy refers to [...]
Depression can have negative effects on the people who suffer from it, effects that are so far-reaching that they take a toll on their loved ones as well. While much progress has been made in recent years to lift the stigma of the disease in society's eyes, researchers--though they have made progress--are still unsure what [...]
As the National Post announced in an October 30 article, "Ontario recently became the first jurisdiction in Canada to begin using imaging machines designed to diagnose the living as a tool to uncover the medical secrets of the dead." Morbid though it may sound, there are indeed benefits to using medical imaging methods such as [...]
On October 8, the Vancouver Sun published an article reporting that a UBC-led study had cast doubt on an unproven medical theory called Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency, or CCSVI, which claims that constricted veins in the neck are the cause of Multiple Sclerosis. The article, like the study and theory that preceded it, is controversial: there is [...]
In an article published in the Globe and Mail last week, national president and CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society, Pamela Fralick, discussed the two biggest issues prevalent to treating cancer in Canada. The first issue addressed was the huge economic impact the disease has on society. Fralick writes, "In 2000, cancer cost $2.6-billion in [...]