Challenging Cases and How to Manage Them
Challenging Cases and How to Manage Them
Saturday, April 25, 2026, 12:15pm - 1:15pm Eastern Time (NY/USA)
Description and Objectives
This session is designed to advance DXA technologists' expertise in scan acquisition, evaluation, and quality assurance in complex imaging scenarios. Using anonymized cases from the ISCD atlas, participants will learn to identify examinations compromised by challenging anatomy or patient-related factors that render scans diagnostically non-evaluable. The program will provide detailed instruction on recognizing technical acquisition and analysis errors that require repeat imaging, including manufacturer-specific and cross-platform artifacts, and will outline appropriate corrective actions to optimize scan quality. Additionally, the session will review protocol modifications and positioning strategies for patients with implants, scoliosis, and degenerative changes, as well as technical considerations for special populations, including pediatric and obese patients, to ensure accurate, reproducible bone density measurements.
After attending this lecture, participants will be able to:
- Identify DXA scans with challenging anatomy or patient-related factors that render them no longer diagnostically evaluable, using anonymized cases from the ISCD atlas.
- Recognize technical scan failures that require repeat imaging and describe appropriate corrective actions, including identification of common artifacts across manufacturers, using anonymized cases from the ISCD atlas.
- Discuss protocol modifications for patients with implants, scoliosis, degenerative changes, and special populations including pediatric and obese patients.
Handouts
All speakers are requested to provide handouts/lecture slides for registered attendees. Those that are provided for this session will be uploaded to the handouts tab and can be accessed/downloaded from that tab.
Orhan K. Oz, MD, PhD, CCD
Professor of Radiology, Chief of Nuclear Medicine
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Orhan K. Öz, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Radiology and Division Chief of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He is holder of the Robert W. Parkey, MD Distinguished Professorship in Radiology and Wechu Pak Professorship in Bone Biophysics. He also holds a secondary appointment in the Charles and Jane Pak Center for Mineral Metabolism and Clinical Research. Additionally, Dr. Öz serves as Medical Director of Nuclear Medicine at Clements University Hospital and directs the UT Southwestern Nuclear Medicine Residency program. His clinical interests include diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine, general radiology, imaging in metabolic bone disease and infection imaging, particularly diabetic foot infections.
Dr. Öz holds a bachelor’s degree in biology, chemistry, and mathematics from Morehouse College in Atlanta, and a master’s degree in applied mathematics from Clark Atlanta University. After receiving his medical degree and doctoral degree in biophysics from Stanford University, he completed his residency training in radiology at UT Southwestern, where received advanced training during a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular biology during residency. He also received fellowship training in radiologic pathology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and in proton emission tomography (PET) at the University of California – Los Angeles.
Although much of his time is dedicated to clinical practice, Dr. Öz is highly involved in research. His research interests include imaging in diabetic foot infections, pathophysiology of diabetic foot infections, molecular imaging probe design and in vivo evaluation, tumor imaging and therapy in clinical trials, and investigating the mechanisms underlying hormonal regulation of bone mass and metabolism and fat metabolism. His research has resulted in numerous publications throughout his career, including the publication of a single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and computed tomography (CT) based scoring system to stage the severity of foot infections in people with diabetes, a clinical trial of radiolabeled white-blood cell SPECT/CT versus MR, opportunistic CT for bone mass assessment in patients receiving PET/CT, and guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of foot infection in patients with diabetes and foot infection.
ASRT Credit
This session is approved by ASRT for 1.00 Category A credits.