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SAN DIEGO - The radiology department at Naval Medical Center San Diego has cut the radiation dose in half from the national average given to patients through a new Flash computed axial tomography scanner.
NMCSD purchased a new CT scanner, costing approximately $2.5 million dollars, in order to minimize the radiation dosage on patients.
“Radiation has become a hot topic,” said Cmdr. Ronald J. Boucher, chairman of the NMCSD Radiology Assistant Specialty Center. “Half of the radiation exposure that the American public receives is coming from nuclear medicine, but we can control the radiation dose that is delivered to the patient through our technology.”
NMCSD is the only Department of Defense hospital in the country to have the new Flash CT scanner. NMCSD has effectively cut the radiation doses in half in the span of five years, and up to 95% in most cardiac scans, from a nationwide average of 21 millisieverts to one or two millisieverts. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, over 70 million CT scans will be performed this year alone, and because of the growing numbers, the need for radiation reduction has become more important than ever.
The most common CT scan is of a patient’s head or chest. The amount of radiation is determined by the body part that is being imaged, while measuring the required amount to produce the quality image needed to diagnose the problem. Radiologists follow the “ALARA” principle, which means the radiation they use is “as low as reasonably achievable.”
“Our goal is to not compromise diagnostic quality while lowering the dose as much as reasonably achievable to give you the correct diagnostic image,” said Boucher.
The standard exposure for any person who is not receiving medical ionizing radiation is about three millisieverts a year. A millisievert is the way to measure radiation doses in diagnostic
medical procedures.
“A CT scan will traditionally put out a higher dose of radiation-until recently,” said Dr. Gilbert Boswell, NMCSD’s Senior Body Imager. “Now we have ways to get much lower doses.” NMCSD radiologists are now able to control radiation exposure, according to Boswell.
“A long time ago, if someone had suspicion of appendicitis, they would get a physical exam and get sent to the operating room when a quarter of the people were fine. Now that number is much lower because CT scans have totally changed the process. We use it to identify things we could never identify before, like appendicitis and kidney stones for example,” said Boucher
NMCSD tracks the radiation doses in order to find trends and record the varying amounts. The new Flash CT scanner has two tubes that emit radiation compared to the single tube the original CT scanner had. The two tubes spread out the pitch of radiation, making the process much faster. A CT scanner without the new technology would produce a head-to-toe image in about 30 seconds, while the new Flash CT scanner will produce the same image in five
seconds.
“The two tubes allow us to increase the speed of the scan,” said Boswell. “It also allows us to minimize the dose duration, while still creating a high quality image.”
There are three steps to lowering the radiation dose. The first step is finding out if the patient actually requires a CT scan. The referring doctor obtains a detailed medical history, which allows the radiologists to create the protocol needed for scanning. The second step is to individualize the dose for each patient. The radiologist will find out the height, weight, age and body mass index of the patient to discern how much radiation is needed. The third step is using the technology to take the scan.
“Increasing the dose increases the chance of something bad happening,” said Boucher. “We want to do whatever we can at our level to minimize radiation.”
NMCSD’s radiology department runs approximately 80 to 100 CT scans per day, with three CT scanners including the newest Flash CT scanner. The Flash CT Scanner was bought in April of this year.
| Date Taken: | 10.29.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 03.21.2011 14:42 |
| Story ID: | 67475 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 71 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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