In a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the American Medical Association asks her to “strongly” reconsider the ICD-10 medical coding set mandate, which the AMA says will place a “crushing burden” on physicians.  The American Medical Association on Wednesday released a study it sponsored showing that projected physicians’ implementation costs for the federally mandated ICD-10 medical coding set will be as much as three times higher than initial estimates. {read more here}

The scientists tagged SIV antibodies, which bind to the outer envelope of the virus, with copper-64, a radioactive isotope used in experimental radiotherapy against cancer. The isotopes emit signals that can be captured using scanning techniques called positron-emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) — both widely used in modern hospitals. {read more here}

Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography helped determine the outcomes of chemotherapy treatment for patients with bone sarcomas.  “The utility of a tumor pre-therapy [fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography] FDG PET scan as a biomarker for the outcome of patients with sarcoma was strengthened by a mid-therapy scan to evaluate the interim treatment response,” the investigators wrote. {read more here}

Adrenoceptor blockers have been found to stave off metastasis and recurrence of breast cancer. This may be due to their interruption of key genes involved in glucose metabolism as visualized by FDG-PET, according to a study published Feb. 6 in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. {read more here}