by
Olga Deshchenko, DOTmed News Reporter | January 26, 2011
From the January 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
But dose reduction isn’t just the province of manufacturers -- radiologists and even third-party service companies are all trying new strategies to keep image quality high and ionizing radiation exposure low.
The tech approach to lower dose
Most of the biggest CT makers have already moved into developing dose-lowering technology, largely through a suite of software algorithms that clean up noise so lower dosages can be used during scans.
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GE's LightSpeed VCT
XTe with ASiR
The technique is called adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction. It’s essentially a computationally faster version of reconstruction tools that have long been used in PET imaging, and that are thought to provide better signal-noise-ratio than filtered back projection, the usual CT technique.
Each vendor has its own twist on the technology. For instance, almost two years ago, GE Healthcare unveiled its ASiR module, which the company claims can cut dosage by 40 to 50 percent for its LightSpeed VCT systems.
And late last year, Philips Healthcare said one if its newest CT scanners, the Ingenuity CT, will include iDose4, the latest iterative reconstruction technique from the vendor. This feature lets users toggle between low dosage and improved resolution, letting them dial down dosage by up to 80 percent.
Philips’ intention with iDose4 is to move the low dose capability from a mode to a standard, as some radiologists don’t always use the tools that are available on their systems. “It’s like having a fuel economy button on a car that you never switch on,” says Dominic Smith, vice president of marketing, clinical science, CT and nuclear medicine with Philips. “What’s the point?”
And Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc., which has offered dose reduction features on its CT scanners since at least the mid-1990s, just got U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for AIDR (Adaptive Iterative Dose Reduction), its version of the latest dose reduction technology.
