ECRI Institute Advises Hospitals On CT Radiation Dose Reduction

Article preview from "The Gray Sheet"-  May 10, 2010

Nonprofit medical technology assessment group ECRI Institute has outlined 16 practical steps that hospitals can take to help control radiation dose from computed tomography scanners.

Article preview from "The Gray Sheet"-  May 10, 2010

Nonprofit medical technology assessment group ECRI Institute has outlined 16 practical steps that hospitals can take to help control radiation dose from computed tomography scanners.

"CT dose control is a significant concern," said Jim Keller, ECRI vice president of health technology evaluation and safety, "and we believe it should be a top priority among hospitals' health technology safety initiatives."

The recommended steps are described in the April issue of ECRI's Health Devices magazine.

Jason Launders, lead author of the article, as well as senior project officer and medical physicist at ECRI, cautioned that CT dose control would not happen by itself. "Hospitals are going to have to put substantial effort into this to reduce CT dose."

For their part, CT scanner manufacturers can make things simpler for hospitals by providing new tools at a reasonable cost, Launders suggested.

The ECRI article comes amidst growing concerns about unnecessarily high patient exposure to ionizing radiation. In February, FDA announced a major initiative to develop new radiation safety requirements for CT, fluoroscopic and nuclear imaging.

Shortly after, CT equipment manufacturers announced a unified plan to incorporate automated alerts and warnings into new CT scanners and software updates for existing machines.

Keller said reports last year of adverse events related to CT brain perfusion at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and other hospitals were "definitely a major impetus for us to develop that guidance article".

-Monica Hogan

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