Minimizing the radiation dose creates confidence
Radiology “Düsseldorf Mitte” is the first medical practice to publish day-to-day CT dose values throughout Germany
Düsseldorf, 18 February 2016. Radiology “Düsseldorf Mitte” regularly publishes the radiation exposure of its patients on the Internet – so far unique in Germany. In diagnostic examinations, the dose values are recorded anonymously by means of computer tomography, analyzed automatically and updated daily in the statistics on the website. The reference values of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) for normal persons are used as a comparison. The complete transparency creates trust on the part of patients and assignments, on the other hand motivates their own employees to handle the radiation exposure particularly sparingly.
Voluntary transparency so far unique in Germany
Computed tomography (CT) in the Federal Republic of Germany is a significant contribution to beam exposure. Hospitals, clinics and medical practitioners are therefore keen to keep the dose of the individual examination as low as possible. It is precisely this so-called “ALARA principle” that the Düsseldorf radiologist Dr. med. Andreas Grust, Specialist in Diagnostic Radiology, as well as a long-standing lecturer and consultant on radiation protection in medicine.
In his own practice “Radiologie Düsseldorf Mitte” Dr. Grust of the “radiation dose problem” is innovative and offers voluntarily a comparability of the own examination efficiency. The aim is “to achieve the greatest possible reduction in the radiation exposure of our patients,” says Dr. Grust. The newly created transparency allows the patient to visit a competent doctor’s office very specifically. The reason for concern is, according to Dr. Grust by no means, because “the data are collected completely anonymously and automatically recorded in the statistics”.
Novel algorithm calculates dose savings
Dose analysis for the minimization of the radiation dose
As a reliable partner, “DoseIntelligence” enables the evaluation of more than one hundred parameters by means of a novel computer-aided control algorithm. In the case of a CT examination, the collected data are automatically evaluated and results for various body regions are recorded. Striking investigations, which indicate errors in the operation or the settings suspect, are automatically detected by means of analysis. Thus the quality can be constantly improved. Up to now, more than ten thousand examinations in the database have been evaluated by DoseIntelligence in the medical practice since the reopening in March 2015. The daily statistics on the Praxis website are currently all 252 cases of the current year. The filtered view shows the dose savings compared to the reference value for normal-weight patients. The reference value of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection must not be confused with the statutory limit value, which is much higher, but serves only to orient the average beam exposure. The DLP dose value represents the absolute radiation exposure that a patient was actually exposed to. For a better comparability, the relative radiation dose is given additionally to the CDTI value relative to a centimeter scan length.
Dr. Andreas Grust hopes to make a contribution through the voluntary publication of his research results, in order to sensitize fellow physicians and also patients for the topic “Avoidable radiation exposure”. Only by qualified personnel, regular training and a critical examination of their own performance, are the best possible results to be obtained from the modern examination equipment.
Link to daily dose analysis: https://www.radiologie-duesseldorf-mitte.de/leistungen/minimierung-strahlendosis