Patient Radiation Exposure Monitoring in Medical Imaging

Recording →

Moderator: Jenia Vassileva (IAEA)

Presenters: Annalisa Trianni (Italy), Ehsan Samei (USA), Hannu Järvinen (Finland)

About the webinar

Medical imaging, including X ray diagnostic radiology, diagnostic nuclear medicine and image guided interventional procedures, is performed with the explicit goal of obtaining useful information to support decision making about the management of patient care. Monitoring of radiation exposure of patients provides critical information for health care professionals and authorities who are responsible for ensuring a justified and optimized use of radiation in medicine. The rapid development of modern digital imaging systems and improved access to the exposure data in a digital format have facilitated patient exposure monitoring by utilizing electronic registries and automatic or semi-automatic digital systems for data collection and analysis.

With the purpose to respond to the lack of definitive guidelines on this subject, the IAEA recently published Safety Report Series No. 112, Patient Radiation Exposure Monitoring in Medical Imaging. This new publication provides consolidated information and detailed advice for setting and implementing patient radiation exposure monitoring programmes at the local or national level. The guidance applies to any systematic process of monitoring relevant patient exposure data, whether implemented manually or by automatic digital means, with an emphasis on the use of automatic patient radiation exposure monitoring systems. The Report aims to encourage the future development and use of such systems to improve access to information about patient radiation exposure,  to contribute to improved implementation of the requirements for radiation protection of patients throughout the world. This includes advice on how patient exposure monitoring programmes, and especially digital exposure monitoring systems, need to be designed and used at local, national, regional or international levels towards the ultimate goal of improving radiation protection and patient care. This webinar will provide an overview of the new guidelines.

Learning objectives

1. To clarify the main goals of patient exposure monitoring and its elements.

2. To understand the patient radiation exposure monitoring workflow and available standards for data recording and collecting.

3. To learn about analytical uses of exposure data and their use for improving patient radiation protection.

3. To summarize the essential features and challenges for the implementation of automatic patient radiation exposure monitoring systems.

About the presenters

Annalisa Trianni is the Chief Medical Physicist at ‘Azienda Provinciale per i Servizi Sanitari’ (provincial health authority), Italy. Her primary field of work is medical imaging, with a focus on dose and image quality optimization for different X ray imaging modalities and a special interest for interventional radiology and computed tomography (CT). She also works as a radiation protection expert. She is the Chair of the scientific committee of the Italian Association of Medical Physics (AIFM) and Director of the School of Physics in Medicine “Caldirola”. Dr Trianni is chair of the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Standard Committee, chair of its working group WG28 on physics and member of working group WG02 on projection radiography and angiography.

Ehsan Samei, PhD, DABR, FAAPM, FSPIE, FAIMBE, FIOMP, FACR is the Reed and Martha Rice Distinguished Professor, Chief Imaging Physicist and Director of Center for Virtual Imaging Trials at Duke University, USA. Author of over 350 referred papers, he is a clinical scientist aiming to bridge the gap between scientific scholarship and clinical practice through patient-centric imaging, effectual realization of translational research, and Medical Physics 3.0. His research focuses on virtual clinical trials, quantitative imaging, and in vitro and in vivo metrologies. Prof. Samei is currently the President of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).

Hannu Järvinen, MSc (Eng) (technical physics), retired in 2017 after 42 years at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), Finland. His most recent position was Principal Adviser for radiation in health care. His has key qualifications in radiation metrology, radiation dosimetry, quality assurance for medical use of radiation, quality audit and clinical audit. He participated as a member, consultant or chairman in numerous national and international working groups established by IAEA, European Radiation Dosimetry Group (EURADOS), European SocieTy for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO), European Commission (EC) and International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU), and has co-authored several publications in international peer-reviewed journals on radiation protection and dosimetry.