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Establishing Imaging Guidelines Within Oncology Pathways
Elliot Fishman, MD, Johns Hopkins Hospital, discusses imagining guidelines and the optimization of health care within oncology.
Transcript
I'm Elliot Fishman from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. And I'm professor of radiology, oncology, surgery, and urology, and director of CT there. And today I'm going to be speaking about guidelines in terms of imaging. A lot of the talks over the meeting that I've listened to are really good at how people are trying to really create excellence in clinical care. And an important part of excellence really is guidelines in imaging, the variability of imaging, the quality of imaging, what studies you use, whether it's CT, MRI, or PET, when do you use them, how do you do the studies, how do you optimize the studies, how do you interpret the studies, are all things that one would say, "Boy, this should be baseline. Everyone should agree." But the reality is they don't.
In good oncology care, imaging is extremely important. Now, perhaps I'm biased because I'm a radiologist, but whether it's staging, whether it's looking for recurrence, whether it's monitoring therapy, imaging becomes extremely important. And it's important that we use the tools we have and optimize them so the quality of care is equal, whether you're in an academic situation or in a private practice or community situation. Wherever you are, we want to make sure that guidelines help you practice.
