Representatives from leading medical imaging equipment manufacturers recently met with radiologist, medical physicist and radiologic technologist representatives from the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging and agreed to work with the Alliance to create standardized radiation dose estimates and vendor sponsored technologist education opportunities.

"This is an example of how all stakeholders in the medical imaging community can and must work together for the good of our pediatric patients and our profession. This summit and our subsequent agreement to work together, represents a major step forward in ensuring that medical protocols keep pace with rapidly advancing technology and are properly displayed on our CT equipment" said Marilyn Goske, M.D., chair of the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging, past president of the Society for Pediatric Radiology (SPR), and Silverman Chair for Radiology Education, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

The Aug. 20 event was sponsored by the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging, a coalition of 29 organizations dedicated to reducing radiation dose estimates that children receive from medical imaging examinations. The Alliance launched its Image Gently™ campaign in January 2008 to raise awareness of opportunities to reduce radiation dose estimates used in pediatric imaging.
"This agreement is a fundamental change in responsibility and accountability for the dose estimates that our children - and actually adults, too - receive during CT examinations," said Donald Frush, M.D., chair of the American College of Radiology Pediatric Imaging Commission.

Currently, dose capture and reporting systems can vary depending on the manufacturer, making comparisons difficult. Also, dose estimates for CT scans can underestimate the radiation dose utilized in pediatric imaging because these estimates are often developed using adult phantoms.

"Children are three to five times more sensitive to radiation than adults, yet dose estimates are made using adult-sized phantoms," said Keith Strauss, M.Sc., of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and director of Radiology Physics and Engineering at Children's Hospital Boston. "Models need to be developed specifically for estimating dose to children undergoing CT exams utilizing phantoms that more appropriately take into consideration the size, shape and composition of children's anatomies."

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