Transient ipsilateral breast edema following COVID-19 vaccination

While ipsilateral lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination is a relatively common finding on mammography and breast ultrasound transient ipsilateral breast edema is rare with only a few published case reports. Radiologists should be aware of this potential imaging appearance of the breast and axilla following COVID-19 vaccination given the imaging features of edema such as trabecular thickening, skin thickening, and increased echogenicity can overlap with benign and malignant breast conditions such as mastitis and inflammatory breast cancer. We describe a case of transient ipsilateral breast edema after COVID-19 vaccination followed by a discussion summarizing the current understanding and management of transient ipsilateral breast edema following COVID-19 vaccination.

Optimizing radiologist productivity and efficiency: Work smarter, not harder

Radiologists' personal productivity and efficiency are critically important for both improving patient outcomes and protecting clinician well-being. There are several solutions that individuals can implement to improve personal productivity and efficiency in the radiology workroom. Strategies include understanding the psychology behind productivity, using personal productivity methodologies to accomplish daily tasks, and learning to modulate stress to optimize performance. Institutional infrastructure requirements include a robust departmental commitment to information technology and informatics, including universal log-in systems, internal websites, and dashboards. The workstation itself can be optimized by utilizing hanging protocols, customized keyboard shortcuts, hotkeys, advanced scripts, gaming mice, and other input devices. Personal devices like smartphones can be harnessed to maximize productivity by using online storage applications and radiology-specific applications to augment knowledge. Reading room layouts must be designed to minimize interruptions and workstations must consider ergonomics to prevent fatigue and strain. High-efficiency teams also need to be created to allow radiologists to delegate non-clinical tasks to reduce administrative burdens. Lastly, continued advances in artificial intelligence including the use of smart report templates will lead to substantial gains in radiologists' productivity and efficiency.

Unilateral axillary adenopathy in the setting of COVID-19 vaccine: Follow-up

With the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and now Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines readily available to the general population, the appearance of vaccine-induced axillary adenopathy on imaging has become more prevalent. We are presenting follow up to the first reported four cases of vaccine induced unilateral axillary adenopathy on imaging to our knowledge, which demonstrate expected self-resolving adenopathy. Our hope is that by providing this follow-up and reviewing current management guidelines, clinicians as well as patients will appreciate that this is an expected, benign, and self-resolving finding. In addition, we hope to quell any vaccine hesitancy brought about by recent mainstream media attention to this topic and ultimately empower patients to receive both the COVID-19 vaccine and undergo routine screening mammography, as both are vital to their health.

Unilateral axillary Adenopathy in the setting of COVID-19 vaccine

With the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approval and rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, it is important for radiologists to consider recent COVID-19 vaccination history as a possible differential diagnosis for patients with unilateral axillary adenopathy. Hyperplastic axillary nodes can be seen on sonography after any vaccination but are more common after a vaccine that evokes a strong immune response, such as the COVID-19 vaccine. As the differential of unilateral axillary adenopathy includes breast malignancy, it is crucial to both thoroughly evaluate the breast for primary malignancy and to elicit history of recent vaccination. As COVID-19 vaccines will soon be available to a larger patient population, radiologists should be familiar with the imaging features of COVID-19 vaccine induced hyperplastic adenopathy and its inclusion in a differential for unilateral axillary adenopathy. Short-term follow-up for unilateral axillary adenopathy in the setting of recent COVID-19 vaccination is an appropriate recommendation, in lieu of immediately performing potentially unnecessary and costly axillary lymph node biopsies.

Key Components of a Robust Faculty Development Program: An Emphasis on Contemporary Programming Events

A strong faculty development program is crucial to recruit, support, and advance early-career faculty members in order to achieve and sustain an exceptional and diverse medical community. There has been increasing appreciation for the importance of fostering intrapersonal "soft-skills" such as leadership, mentorship, resilience, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. These skills allow an individual to better interact with others and their environment, and can facilitate teamwork, time management, decision-making, and conflict resolution. The development of these skills is an ongoing process that is cumulative in nature, and generalizable to any career phase or field of medicine. A comprehensive faculty development program must emphasize these contemporary notions alongside the traditional curriculum, and this includes individual, departmental, institutional, and national level considerations.

MRI-guided breast interventions

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided interventions, including biopsies and wire localizations, are fundamental to any breast imaging practice due to the high sensitivity but limited specificity of breast MRI. The basic steps of MRI-guided biopsies are similar regardless of the vendor or platform, and technical considerations include approach planning, patient preparation and positioning, lesion targeting, and directional sampling using a vacuum-assisted biopsy technique. Unique challenges related to MRI-guided biopsies include vanishing lesions due to contrast washout, obscuration of the biopsy site due to susceptibility artifacts, and limited access to posteromedial lesions. A careful approach to planning, patient positioning, and lesion targeting will maximize the chances for a successful biopsy. Due to overlapping imaging features between benign and malignant lesions, radiologic-pathologic concordance is difficult and essential for further patient management.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

5 Technical Efficacy: Stage 3 J. MAGN. RESON. IMAGING 2017;46:631-645.