Consistency in dose management winner: St. Louis Children's Hospital Barnes-Jewish Hospital. A cardiac scan was carried out on a six-month-old girl using a Somatom Definition Flash with a radiation dose of just 0.43 mSv. This enabled a narrowing of the pulmonary arteries to be ruled out. However, indications were found of tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart abnormality. Copyright St. Louis Children's Hospital Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
January 7, 2014 — The winners of the Right Dose Image Contest were announced at the Radiological Society of North America Annual Meeting (RSNA 2013) in Chicago. The winning images offer an idea of what is possible with the newest low dose CT technology offered by vendors.
An international jury of experts chose the nine winners of the Right Dose Excellence Awards, and online votes determined the winner of the Public Vote. This year, two U.S. hospitals earned top honors in the pediatric imaging and dose consistency categories. The image submitted by Brian Reilly, RT(R), radiologic technologist, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, was honored in the Pediatric category. Multiple low-dose computed tomography (CT) images submitted by St. Louis Children’s Hospital Barnes-Jewish Hospital led the hospital to claim the prize for consistency in dose management.
In total, 197 medical practices and clinical institutions worldwide participated in the contest, each using a CT scanner from Siemens’ Somatom family of CT systems. The judging panel based their decisions on two criteria: diagnostic quality and using the right radiation dose.
In the award-winning pediatric image from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, a five-month-old boy was scanned using a Somatom Definition Flash CT system. The boy had experienced unusually noisy breathing since the age of two months. At four months, he developed stridor, caused by a narrowing of the airways. A CT angiogram showed abnormal development of a double aortic arch surrounding and compressing the boy’s trachea. The applied dose was 1.21 milliSieverts (mSv).
The St. Louis Children’s Hospital Barnes-Jewish Hospital received the prize for Consistency in Dose Management for its efforts to provide the best radiation dose for every patient according to patient age, general condition, and clinical question at hand. A 6-month-old girl received a cardiac scan conducted with a Somatom Definition Flash CT system, resulting in a radiation dose of just 0.43 mSv. Using this scan, clinicians were able to rule out a narrowing of the girl’s pulmonary arteries. However, they found indications of tetralogy of Fallot.
Other categories included Trauma, Dual Energy — which allows examination of a body region using two different tube voltages — Cardiology, Vascular, Neurology, Oncology and Routine Examinations.
For more information: www.healthcare.siemens.com, www.rsna.org
April 22, 2024 
