The BIR Podcast

Dr Joshua Shur is a Specialist Registrar at St George's Hospital London and winner of the BIR/Phillips Excellence Award for trainees in 2016. In this interview, he talks about what inspired him in his project as well as his reflections on the benefits of being a member of the BIR.

Dr Ian Francis is the Education Development Lead of Specialty Training Board at Royal College of Radiologists. He is a Consultant Radiologist and Clinical Lead for Strategy at QVH NHS Foundation Trust. In this interview, he talks about about his own experiences as a radiologist and his best piece of advice to young radiology professionals.

Dr David Wilson is a Consultant Radiologist at St Luke’s Hospital and former President of the BIR. In this interview, he talks about his experience as a radiologist and his best piece of advice to young radiology professionals.

In this podcast, we talk to Drs Denise Arthur, Peter Hiles and Helen Hughes about their recently published BIR book, "Personal Protective Equipment for Diagnostic X-ray Use".

In this podcast, Sophia Anderton, Head of Publishing at the BIR, talks to the Editors-in-Chief of BJR, Dr Simon Jackson and Professor Kevin Prise. Listen to find out more about BJR, Simon and Kevin’s plans for the journal in 2017 and the important subject of peer review, including combatting reviewer fatigue, tips on how to be a good reviewer, and ways to gain recognition through websites such as Publons.

The role of diagnostic imaging in PE is increasingly undertaken by CT Pulmonary Angiography (CTPA). The inappropriate use of CTPA has a negative impact on patients’ safety and hospital resources, along with increasing the load on the working force. This audit aims to assess the local practice against the iRefer guidelines for CTPA in suspected PE. To improve the diagnostic yield of CTPA, risk stratification criteria, involving Wells score and D-dimer have been used.

Acute flank pain due to suspected renal colic is a common clinical presentation in A&E. Urolithiasis is estimated to have a lifetime incidence of 12%. It usually presents in patients of30–60 years of age and is approximately three times more common in males. CT-KUB is the investigation of choice when investigating acute renal colic.

Neuroimaging is integral to the diagnostic workup of dementia. This is to exclude potentially treatable causes of cognitive impairment and improve the accuracy of diagnosis by identifying zonal changes and the extent of cerebrovascular disease. CT scan with coronal reformats is probably the most cost effective first line option available, though MRI is more sensitive and is required where a rare condition is suspected. This audit aims to assess the performance of reporting on CT Brain scans in patients with suspected dementia, to determine whether all relevant information is included in the report. The hope is to maximise the diagnostic value of the report to the requesting clinician.

The RCR states that sufficient clinical details including past medical/surgical history and any relevant notes from the patient's clinical examination, should be supplied to enable the radiologist to understand the particular diagnostic or clinical problems to be resolved by the radiological investigation. The purpose of this audit was to determine whether sufficient surgical history was being given when clinicians requested CT examinations.

Absence of Nigrosome-1(N1) hyperintensity on SWI-MRI is a relatively new sign in Parkinson’s disease (PD) with a high diagnostic accuracy on 3T MRI . ➤ Pathology in PD starts in substructures in the dorsolateral substantial nigra (SN) called Nigrosomes, with N1 representing the largest cluster of dopaminergic cells in the pars compacta (SNpc). ➤ N1 appears as an ovoid hyperintensity in the SNpc ventralis, bounded medially by SNpc dorsalis, anteriorly & laterally by SN pars reticulata (SNpr), resembling a Swallow tail. Loss of the hyperintensity reflects loss of SN dopaminergic neurones Aims ➤To assess the feasibility of N-1 detection on departmental 1.5T and 3T SWI-MRI. ➤To measure the inter- and intra-rater agreement, and to compare the values with the literature