Medical Device Daily Contributing Writer and Staff Reports

France is falling far behind major European nations for radiology and imaging equipment and risks falling further behind due to delays for approved installations.

According to the president of the Société Française de Radiologie (SFR), Philippe Grenier, MD, only 381 medical scanners were actually installed by the end of 2006 out of the 484 approved by the government.

He called for an acceleration in authorizations, adding that the government needs to go far beyond its current plan for 605 units and install a total of 750 medical imaging units by 2010 to keep pace with the needs of the nation's healthcare system.

Grenier cited the example of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), where France today counts one machine for every 157,000 residents, compared to one for every 47,142 residents in Germany and one per 80,000 residents in Spain.

He said the waiting periods in France for MRI scans increased from 29 days in 2005 to 33 days in 2006, trailing behind the infamous delays in Italy and the UK.

Professor Catherine Oppenheim from the Centre Hopital Sainte Anne (Paris) said a recent study showed that for suspected acute vascular incidents more than two-thirds of patients did not have access to an MRI scan in 2006.

Outgoing French President Jacques Chirac launched a special initiative in 2003 called Plan Cancer to reduce waiting times for MRI scans to 15 days. Two years later, SFR sounded the alarm as it noted only two of three scanners authorized were being purchased and installed.

Bureaucratic delays in the purchasing process were partly to blame, but a lack of trained technicians to operate the equipment in many regions of France also contributed to the delays.

According to a 2005 report, more than 38 millions MRI exams were performed in the U.S. compared to 2 million in France.

Grenier, chairman of the department of diagnostic radiology at the Hopital Pitié-Salpetrière (Paris), was recognized in March by the European Society of Radiology at its annual meeting in Vienna with the society's Gold Medal for pioneering work in chest imaging.

Agfa installs RIS at Lille university hospital

Agfa Healthcare (Mortsel, Belgium) will network 14 radiology, nuclear medicine and test departments of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU-Lille; Lille, France), a contract valued at 11 million ($1.39 million).

Two pilot sites will be installed in 3Q07 and when the radiology information system (RIS) is fully implemented in late 2008 it will connect 500 users including doctors, X-ray technicians, lab technicians, medical secretaries, receptionists and supervisors.

CHU-Lille, France's fourth largest teaching hospital serving 1 million patients annually, chose Agfa's Impax RIS to speed up processes and reduce wait times for patients. For prescribing physicians the system introduces traceability across the continuum of a procedure from electronic patient registration to reporting and consultation. New capabilities include faster reporting, a more complete overview of results and, significantly, voice reporting available online.

"We are changing the entire approach to imaging in CHRU with the aim of making it accessible to everyone," said Marc Lejeune, head of CHU-Lille IT and lead for the project.

Agfa HealthCare has installed RIS suites in French CHU teaching hospitals in Nantes, Brest, Montpellier and Grenoble. Funding for the program is provided by the County Council of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and the European Union.

Breast cancer gene discovered

Scientists at the Lundberg Laboratory for Cancer Research and the Plastic Surgery Clinic at the Sahlgrenska Academy (Göteborg, Sweden) have discovered a new hereditary breast cancer gene. The researchers found that women with a certain hereditary deformity syndrome run a nearly 20 times higher risk of contracting breast cancer than expected.

"Our findings are extremely important, providing new knowledge of hereditary cancer genes and how they can cause breast cancer," said Göran Stenman. "The discovery also makes it possible to uncover breast cancer in women who have a predisposition for Saethre-Chotzen malformation syndrome,"

By detailed mapping of families with Saethre-Chotzen syndrome, the scientists have found that women with this syndrome have an elevated risk of contracting breast cancer. Saethre-Chotzen primarily involves malformations of the skull, face, hands, and feet. The syndrome is caused by mutations in a gene called TWIST1.

The findings of the study show that women with this syndrome should be receive early mammograms in order to discover breast cancer at an early stage.

"We have already started to use this new knowledge in our work with patients and now recommend regular mammograms for young women with this syndrome. Several early cases of breast cancer have already been uncovered with mammography," said Pelle Sahlin, chief physician at the Plastic Surgery Clinic.

CancerGrid project is launched

Albany Molecular Research (AMRI; Albany, New York) reported the launch of the CancerGrid Project, a three-year multidisciplinary research program funded by the European Commission in which 10 life sciences companies and academic centers will work together to discover and develop anti-cancer agents.

"This innovative project utilizes grid-based computing technology for the automated design of chemical libraries, with the goal of discovering potential cancer treatments," said Michael Guaciaro, PhD, president and managing director of AMRI's European operations in Budapest, Hungary.

Grid computing uses multiple computational resources in a parallel manner, allowing researchers to tap into a powerful network of interconnected workstations that can process large amounts of data and reduce computational time. In addition to AMRI's site in Budapest, the consortium includes both companies and academic centers with established reputations in anti-cancer research and project management: Inte:Ligand (Austria), Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia), University of Helsinki (Finland), GKI Economic Research/Computer and Automation Research Institute (Hungary), DAC Srl and University of Bari (Italy), University Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel).

"We are [pleased] to coordinate such a distinguished consortium of cancer-research experts," added Guaciaro, who noted that the project represents the first large-scale application of this technology in drug discovery.