Knee MRI under Medicare – who qualifies?

1/12/2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

We all see lots of knee problems in general practice. History and examination obviously is important but it will be nice to have confirmation in cases where there may be dual pathology. MRI of knee is an excellent tool which can confirm and exclude various soft tissue injuries which makes a significant difference in their prognosis and management.…

Medicare rebatable angiography – navigating the complex criteria

28th October 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

We all know how Medicare makes our life all that much more difficult when they keep changing the rules. This is particularly the case when it comes to ordering angiographic studies. We often have to order angiogram to exclude arterial occlusion or embolism or arterial rupture or dissection. These cases are usually acute and urgent in nature and we don’t have the time to refer them to our favourite specialist colleagues.…

Image guided injections

28th September 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

Injections around joints, tendons and bursa can be tricky. Unless you are trained to know where to insert the needle, it is all a hit and miss. If the patient doesn’t respond to the injection, you really don’t know whether it didn’t work or because it was not in the right spot. That’s when image guided injections come handy.…

Headaches in the paediatric population

30th August 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

Headaches in the paediatric population is not that uncommon. To work out the cause is not always straight forward. There can be many causes for the headaches but sometimes we have to resort to more detailed investigations. We usually try to avoid radiation from a brain CT scan in the young growing brain. This is where an MRI can be useful.…

Post Covid-19 pneumonitis

30th July 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

Up to 31%-69% of COVID-19 survivors will experience long COVID symptoms after initial recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection [1, 2]. While the initial symptoms of long COVID symptoms include fatigue (29%), muscle pain, palpitations, cognitive impairment (28%), dyspnea (21%), anxiety (27%), chest pain, and arthralgia (18%) [3], in patients experiencing long covid symptoms, fatigue is most prevalent (51%), followed by dyspnoea (35%), arthralgia (25%) and concentration difficulties (25%).…

Spectrum Bankstown Now Open

30th June 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

We are used to quality radiology services from Spectrum Medical Imaging. First, we had expanded services in Liverpool with Spectrum Medical Imaging opening further rooms at Sydney Southwest Private Hospital.

Spectrum is now open at

402-410 Chapel Road Bankstown

Spectrum Bankstown offers full service radiology including CT, Ultrasound, Cardiac CT, interventional radiology and OPG.

Personalised breast cancer risk assessment is here

31st May 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

We know that different women have different breast types. Some breasts are more dense than others. Some breasts have more adipose tissues than others. Obviously, with age, those features will change. Thus, the ideal imaging techniques will be different and will depend on the breast type, the age and the underlying risk of the woman, amongst many other things.…

Nuchal translucency or Non-invasive prenatal screening

30th April 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

Women who are in their first trimester of pregnancy have two options for screening for structural abnormalities and chromosomal abnormalities such as Down’s, Edwards or Patau syndrome. While it not necessary to perform both, we need to know which test exclude what abnormalities. Spectrum offers both and we need to understand both tests for that we can discuss them with our patients.…

The tale of two cysts

24th February 2022, Spectrum Medical Imaging

Case 1

7-year-old girl has 3-week history of headache, lethargy and vomiting.Woke up in the morning with headache and vomiting, presented to hospital casualty. Urgent CT brain showed acute hydrocephalus with raised intracranial pressure requiring urgent operative insertion of ventricular drain to reduce ventricular pressure. What is the cause of the obstruction?

Case 2

6 ½ year old girl.…

Image guided injections – what goes where for which condition?

29th November 2021, Spectrum Medical Imaging

image guided injections

If you are like me, you will be confused as which joints or joint can be injected for which clinical condition. Then you need to know whether they are ultrasound guided procedures or CT scan guided procedures. There just a myriad of musculoskeletal conditions that can improve with corticosteroid injections. Spectrum Medical Imaging has assembled a team of subspecialist interventional and musculoskeletal expert radiologists to assist us in managing our patients with these conditions.…

CT Angiogram – who does Medicare cover?

23rd September, Spectrum Medical Imaging

CT angiogram

We all know the restrictions we all have in who we can order an ECG, stress test or stress echocardiogram for since the change in Medicare rebates some months ago. I am confused about the various eligibility criteria. You know what happens when are all confused? We stop ordering them to the detriment to patient care.…

Pregnancy and Pelvic Imaging – who can you trust?

18th August 2021, Spectrum Medical Imaging

We were all taught that we should always see it for ourselves and trust no one when it comes to history and examination. We cannot rely on third party information but sometimes, we have to. When we have to refer patient for imaging, we need to ensure that we can trust the provider and have faith in their experience and quality of reporting.…