Sectra

Better management of X-ray radiation doses starts with recording and tracking each exposure patients receive. Dose tracking has come to the forefront of medicine in recent years with the realization that medical imaging has doubled the public’s exposure to ionizing radiation since the 1980s, largely due to the rapid expansion of computed tomography (CT) and minimally invasive procedures guided by angiography.

Physicians have used radiation in medicine for more than a century. The use of radiation in diagnostic imaging, including computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, angiography, mammography, computed radiography (CR) and digital radiography (DR), as well as in nuclear medicine, has aided greatly in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases. 

The radical increase in patient exposure to radiation from medical imaging over the last two decades has created great concerns about its inherent risks. Today, one of the highest priorities on many hospital agendas is to break this trend by achieving improved control of the radiation exposure to their patients. 

Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) was approved in the United States for use as a supplement to traditional mammography following U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review of two studies in which radiologists showed a 7 percent improvement in the ability to distinguish between cancerous and noncancerous cases using 3-D datasets.

In a new report from Sectra, 78 referring physicians and 78 radiologists share their views on the process of ordering studies and communicating results. Radiology lies at the very center of the healthcare chain. Most patients pass through an imaging department at one point or another in their treatment. That said, an organization’s overall effectiveness is highly dependent upon the ability of radiology to provide excellent service to referring physicians.