Journal of the American College of Radiology : JACR
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The technical nature of radiotherapy requires different data collection strategies for outcomes reporting than those required for most other disciplines in clinical medicine. To correlate advances in radiotherapy technology with treatment outcomes, it is necessary to integrate a given radiotherapy outcomes-study database with the record-and-verify database and with the global hospital database. ⋯ This bioinformatics database was successfully queried in a manner that allowed streamlining data flow of relevance to radiotherapy outcomes studies. Future directions of the application of this integration are discussed.
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Practice Guideline
ACR Appropriateness Criteria on suspected spine trauma.
The evaluation of patients with suspected spine trauma is controversial. This document addresses several pertinent issues: (1) which patients need imaging, (2) how much imaging is necessary, and (3) exactly what sort of imaging is to be performed. This subject is important, because conservative estimates indicate that more than 1 million blunt trauma patients, who have the potential for sustaining spine injuries, are seen annually in emergency departments in the United States. ⋯ Reconstructed computed tomographic images may be used from thorax-abdomen-pelvis studies of children, if they have been obtained. Magnetic resonance imaging should be the primary modality for evaluating possible spinal cord injury or compression as well as ligamentous injuries in acute cervical spine trauma. Flexion and extension radiography is best reserved for follow-up of symptomatic patients, after neck pain has subsided.