Radiology departments must define and monitor their safety metrics to measure departmental performance, identify problem areas and track improvement, while also fostering a supportive department culture, according to an article published in the February issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
CHICAGO—Communicating radiation dose exposure information is a process fraught with landmines. Experts offered a host of strategies for navigating the landmines and sharing dose information with patients during a Nov. 27 session at the 97th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
The Image Gently campaign and the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) have launched the “Go With the Guidelines” campaign to encourage community hospitals, academic hospitals and clinics to observe new North American Guidelines for Nuclear Medicine Radiopharmaceutical Dose in children.
Citing significant variations in pediatric radiopharmaceutical doses and package inserts lacking pediatric doses, the authors of an article appearing in the November issue of Radiology indicated recently approved consensus guidelines for pediatric administered radiopharmaceutical doses may help solve the problem.
Healthcare providers need to use diagnostic radiation sparingly and cautiously, implored the Joint Commission in Issue 47 of Sentinel Event Alert. It also implied a recommendation for obtaining information about patients' recent radiation from other providers.
Siemens Healthcare sponsored a series of symposia and showcased its most recent CT scanner and image interpretation software at this year’s meeting of the Society of Cardiovascular CT (SCCT) in Denver, July 14-17.
High-pitch, dual-source CT scanners may enable physicians to sustain diagnostic accuracy while allowing up to seven-fold reductions in pediatric radiation dose, according to a study presented this weekend at the Society of Cardiovascular CT (SCCT) in Denver.
In an effort to broaden patients’ protection from excessive radiation, the American College of Radiology (ACR) has launched a CT Dose Index Registry, allowing facilities to track their radiation doses from CT and to gauge their emitted doses against other institutions.
A radiation safety call center staffed by nurses may serve as a valuable resource to a public concerned and uncertain about the risks of ionizing radiation and the benefits of imaging studies, according to an article published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
Image reconstruction can dramatically reduce the required electrical current and drop chest CT-induced radiation to as low as 3.5 mGy while maintaining acceptable image quality, according to a study published in the May issue of Radiology.
Molecular radiotherapy needs an injection of research and funding to broaden its usage and expand its effectiveness as a minimally invasive method of cancer treatment, according to an April report released by the British Institute of Radiology (BIR).
Wednesday, April 20
GE Healthcare has released its latest PET/CT scanner, the Optima PET/CT 560, available in 8- and 16-slice configurations with automatic radiation dose reduction and modulation.
CT utilization in EDs across the country is surging in pediatric patients; whereas 1.2 percent of children admitted to the ED received CT scans in 1995, that percentage grew to nearly 6 percent by 2008, leading the authors of a study published April 5 in Radiology to reiterate calls for close scrutiny of CT use, especially among children.
Written by Lisa Fratt
When referring physicians and patients focus nearly exclusively on radiation risk, they may overlook other, and perhaps more significant, risks associated with medical procedures, according to a clinical perspective published in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
After a review of nearly a dozen studies of self-referred imaging by nonradiologists, the authors of a study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology concluded that self-referral “invariably” leads to higher utilization—meaning that if policymakers wish to cut the volume and costs of diagnostic imaging, closing the loophole of the Stark Law needs to be top priority.
Presenting last week at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) summit on managing CT radiation dose in Bethesda, Md., representatives from the American College of Radiology (ACR) discussed initiatives for minimizing CT radiation dose ranging from technology and education to public policy and voluntary reporting.
Whole body diffusion-weighted MRI in lymphoma patients may yield staging results largely equal to those of the standard 18F-FDG PET/CT, while delivering no radiation and a more economical alternative, according to a study published in the March issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. However, further studies are required to confirm the role of MRI.
RadQual, a developer of quality control products for nuclear medicine, SPECT and PET imaging, has released a dose calibrator standard traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology for measurement of gallium-68 and fluorine-18 for up to 1 millicurie (37 MBq) strength.
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