Re: “Radiologists and Cardiologists Should Work Together on Advanced Cardiac Imaging”

Abstract

Coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) and, to a lesser extent, cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) will revolutionize the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. This will raise important scientific, financial, and political questions. The scientific questions will relate to how, when, and on whom to use this technology. The financial questions will pertain to how to pay for it. The political questions will primarily concern which specialists should perform and interpret the studies. Cardiologists have made clear their belief that they should be the ones to do so [ 1 Wolk M.J. Performing a scan of the heart. The New York Times. 2004 Google Scholar , 2 Wood S. Cardiologists and radiologists gear up for CT angiography turf war. Available at: http://www.theheart.org. Accessed December 12, 2005. Google Scholar , 3 Bove AA. Who owns images of the heart? Available at http://staging.accardio.org/cs/editorials/Editorials.asp?EdID=36. Accessed December 12, 2005. Google Scholar , 4 Levin D.C. Rao V.M. Turf wars in radiology should it be radiologists or cardiologists who do cardiac imaging?. J Am Coll Radiol. 2005; 2: 749-752 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (11) Google Scholar ]. But the huge crowds that filled the cardiac computed tomography (CT) and MR refresher courses and scientific sessions at the 2005 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America indicate that radiologists have a strong interest in this field and will not give up the fight easily. So what to do about this impending confrontation? Radiologists and Cardiologists Should Work Together on Advanced Cardiac ImagingJournal of the American College of RadiologyVol. 3Issue 5PreviewWhen it comes to imaging the heart, radiologists and cardiologists overlap like a Venn diagram. For a variety of reasons, cardiologists now control imaging modalities first introduced by radiologists, for example, coronary angiography (renamed “cardiac catheterization”) and ultrasound (renamed “echocardiography”). Cardiac nuclear medicine, also known as “nuclear cardiology,” is in a state of détente, with some being performed by radiologists and some by cardiologists. The 2 specialties compete over peripheral angioplasties and, more recently, over carotid stenting. Full-Text PDF