David Foos, Director, Research & Innovation, Carestream

Inside Carestream Research & Innovation: Lowering Pediatric Radiology Dose

Reading Time: 2 minutes read

Dose reduction in pediatric imaging grabbed more headlines this year. Dose is a particularly important with children for several reasons:

David Foos, Clinical Applications Research, Carestream Health

  • ▪ Tissues in children are more radiosensitive
  • ▪ Children have a longer lifetime to manifest radiation-induced injuries such as cancer or cataracts
  • ▪ Each exam (and therefore dose) is cumulative

The “Image Gently” campaign from the Society for Pediatric Radiology strives to change clinical practice by increasing awareness of opportunities to lower radiation dose in the imaging of children.

As part of our support for Image Gently, members of Carestream’s Research & Innovation (R&I) Labs are optimizing target exposure index levels for our DRX-1 and CR product families.

How are we working to lower our ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) dose levels without reducing image quality or losing diagnostic information?

Here’s what’s happening in the lab:

  • Carestream R&I scientists, who are intimately familiar with the technical aspects of digital radiographic image capture and processing, are collaborating with pediatric radiologists at several leading children’s hospitals to understand pediatric image interpretability needs.
  • Images are collected covering a range of exam types for children, captured with the DRX-1 using the hospital’s current imaging techniques.
  • Using a simulation software package developed by Carestream R&I scientists, a series of new images are generated from each original.
  • The simulated images represent the originals as though captured at incrementally reduced dose levels.
  • Carestream scientists then work with the pediatric radiologists to optimize the diagnostic interpretability of each image by varying processing parameters in our Enhanced Visualization Processing Plus image software.
  • Once the image is optimized for each dose level, pediatric radiologists evaluate whether reduced dose images can satisfy their diagnostic requirements.

While this work is still underway, early indications suggest that dose reductions will be possible.  When completed, the results of this Carestream R&I labs investigation will be incorporated into our radiography products, benefiting pediatric patients with lower radiation levels.

How is your hospital or imaging site supporting the Image Gently campaign? 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On3Shdz5-0w&w=560&h=349]

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