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Five big European radiology stories from 2020

February 12, 2021
European News
From the January/February 2021 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

Siemens Healthineers approached CEA-Leti about designing, integrating, manufacturing, and testing a new generation of PCDM that would be mature enough to be integrated into an X-ray CT scanner prototype, because of the advantages they offer in imaging.

More than a quarter of CT scanners in Ireland have exceeded end-of-life
At least 15 of the 59 total CT scanners in the Emerald Isle have passed their life expectancy dates but remain in operation, with one at South Tipperary General Hospital still in use despite passing its end of life date seven years ago in 2013.

Dublin’s Mater Hospital also has a scanner that has been out of date since 2016 and 10 others that expired in 2017 but are still being utilized, the Irish Sun reported in July.

"The HSE (Health Service Executive) is aware of the high-risk equipment that requires to be replaced and as consequence has increased the equipment replacement budget to €65m in 2020 to remove the identified unreliable and at risk medical equipment," Ireland's HSE, which heads its public healthcare, told HCB News. "The HSE intends to continue to provide a steady state investment of €65m to the National Equipment Replacement Programme (NERP) into the future to address the backlog of aging medical equipment that currently resides in our front line health services."

Figures from the HSE show that 15 scanners have passed their end of life date and that two more will run out later this year. Eight others are well within their own dates, and the remaining 34 have no end of date information available, according to the Irish Sun.

UK cancer experts say worst fears about patient backlog becoming reality
In June the former head of the cancer program for the World Health Organization (WHO) said the U.K. will require an emergency national response to manage the backlog of cancer cases deferred and delayed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Karol Sikora, chief medical officer of Rutherford Health, says his and his colleagues’ “worst fears” have become a reality, with Great Britain facing a significant build-up of cancer cases as a direct result of the pandemic. He asserts a similar response to the one taken to address COVID-19 is required to prevent a full-blown health crisis in the coming months.

“It remains a real possibility that the coronavirus will claim more lives through cancer than COVID-19 itself,” he said in a statement. “This would be an unimaginable disaster. Almost 300,000 people with suspected cancer symptoms have not been referred for testing and over two million people missed out on screening. The progression of cancers during these delays will impact quality of life and long-term patient survival. Even modest delays can impact on patient survival.”

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