Approaches to Dose Reduction in Radiography and Fluoroscopy Maintaining diagnostic accuracy and high image quality while ensuring patient and staff safety
As fluoroscopy examinations often require direct interaction with the patient during the examination, patient radiation dose reduction measures are important for both patients and staff. This can also influence the choice between a remote-controlled or a patient-side-controlled system.
Dose Reduction
As a longtime innovator in healthcare technology, Siemens works to engineer the highest quality image at the lowest possible medical radiation dose. With the MAX Systems for Fluoroscopy and Radiography, we’ve achieved both—and enabled significant workflow enhancements.
MAXalign – Get It Right with the First Shot
MAXalign allows the tube angle to be perfectly aligned to the detector, taking the guesswork out of angle setting in free exams and reducing patient radiation dose by avoiding repeat exposures. With MAXalign, your technologists get it right with the first shot, which improves workflow across staff and shifts. MAXalign is available on Ysio® Max, a digital radiography system, and on the fluoroscopy systems Luminos Agile Max and Luminos dRF Max, when equipped with the Ysio Max option.
- Works for you by making positioning for free examinations easier and more accurate with MAX wi-D and MAX mini detectors.
- Supports you by displaying the correct detector angle on the MAXtouch screen. Eliminates guessing and enhances quality and consistency across staff.
- Protects you and your patients by avoiding repeat exposures for incorrect angles and grid cut-off.
CARE Dose Reduction Program
CARE is a comprehensive dose reduction program with the ability to combine several applications for medical radiation dose reduction without compromising image quality.
With it, you can have:
- High efficiency digital flat detectors - their performance remains much more constant over time than that of image intensifiers, which require increased dose to maintain image quality¹
- Easy grid removal for pediatric and extremities examinations.
- Low absorption tabletop material and grids.
- Short table top to detector and wall stand front to detector distances for easier set-up and more precise examinations.
- Wall stand top alignment for more efficient chest exam collimation.
- Organ programs with pre-set collimation size and Cu filters for skin dose reduction.
- Technology like the Clinical Assurance Program (CAP) with reject analysis, which helps you determine the causes of repeat examinations.
- Better monitoring of under- or over-exposure of digital X-ray images with Exposure Index (EXI) and Deviation Index (DI). Faster and easier DICOM Dose Reporting, which sends documentation to PACs as a DICOM object.
Image Quality
Image quality is key to a quality examination and accuracy. We all know when it comes to clinical image quality; one size does not fit all. Our solutions with advanced image processing tools help enhance the image quality at the lowest patient radiation dose possible. Siemens offers a variety of settings and impressions to acquire preferred image quality at low dose.
