Another development affecting the industry is that the FDA has been looking hard at CT dose and many in the industry are checking and double-checking their own product portfolios.

“We are in a radiation-emitting area and obviously dose is a huge factor, and it wasn’t of the same relevance last year as it is this year,” Widmann says. “Even though X-ray has a fraction of the dose of CT, every vendor in the industry is under a different set of customer requests and a different set of regulatory requests and that will be game-changing for everyone going forward.”


GE has continued its efforts to bring to market equipment that best fits in this realm.

“We are optimizing the dose around X-rays so it is the lowest possible and making sure clinical outcomes are as efficient as possible for physicians to make the right diagnosis or decision,” Widmann says.

Although Shimadzu does not include CT offerings, this situation will benefit the company.

“It’s created openings for our own cutting-edge technologies like tomosynthesis using our own direct conversion panel on the Sonialvision Safire. These new technologies are considered disruptive technologies in the industry because it gives the well-known CT a run for its money in certain exams,” Serrao says. “Exams that require weight-bearing positioning—performed by tilting our RF table—are great examples where a CT not only cannot perform the exam but are better-suited for tomosynthesis.”

New rooms
For hospitals creating an R/F room from scratch, it’s important to consider flexibility and upgrading capabilities for the future.

“If they convert from an analog X-ray room to a DR X-ray room, there’s not much to change,” Ybarra says. “For a new hospital, we recommend giving the technologist more room to bring in gurneys and have latitude to shoot X-rays from both sides of the table. If you have a real small room, you have to move the patient more. Bigger is better.”

Most experts advise setting up the room so it’s flexible enough to do both radiographic and fluoroscopy procedures in integrated digital formats, letting the patients get in and out faster.

Hospitals creating an R/F room should decide if they are buying a room just for immediate needs or designing a way to manage patients with products that are upgradeable. That will provide technologies that can retrofit and expand far beyond just one version of product release.

Looking ahead
On the DR side, more wireless detectors and increasing workflow improvements for the user are the big things expected to drive the industry in 2011 and beyond. On the R/F side, the trend will be more flexibility in the rooms, making them 2-in-1 rooms and making them more cost-effective.

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