5 Simple Steps to Improve Pediatric Radiological Care Concerning Radiation Safety

The following is a direct quote from ImageGently.org, a newly organized international alliance for radiation safety in Pediatric imaging.

Here are 5 simple steps to improve patient care in your everyday practice:

1. Increase awareness for the need to decrease radiation dose to children during CT scanning. Protocol development recommendations are offered in ImageGently.org
2. Be committed to make a change in your daily practice by working as a team with your technologists, physicist, referring doctors and parents to decrease the radiation dose! Sign the pledge! Click on the link on the home page to join the image gently campaign today.
3. Contact your physicist to review your adult CT protocols and then use the simple CT protocols on this website to “down-size” the protocols for kids. More is not better….adult size KV and mAs are not necessary for small bodies.
4. Single phase scans are usually adequate. Pre- and post contrast, and delayed CT scans rarely add additional information in children yet can double or triple the dose! Consider removing multi-phase scans from your daily protocols.
5. Scan only the indicated area. If a patient has a possible dermoid on ultrasound, there is rarely need to scan the entire abdomen and pelvis. “Child-size” the scan and only scan the area required to obtain the necessary information.