...the ALARA Concept for Performing Pediatric Head Computed Tomography With the advancement in Computed Tomography (CT) imaging technology and image acquisition is the importance of patient safety, particularly in pediatric imaging. CT has become one of the most popular diagnostic tools used in the clinical environment. In some facilities, CT scans constitute as much as 67% of the patient's annual exposures to ionizing radiation (Furlow, 2012). Physicians and technologists alike must be knowledgeable on how to perform the ALARA principle on their patients in order to deliver the least amount of radiation dose possible while achieving diagnostic quality images. Image Gently Campaign Image Gently and the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging has launched a campaign to increase the awareness of the importance of applying the ALARA principles when imaging pediatric patients with Computed Tomography. The Image Gently web site is a source of valuable information for parents of pediatric patients, physicians, technologists, and radiologists. The web site offers pediatric protocols as well as tracking mechanisms for parents of pediatric patients to keep track of their child's dose from clinical CT examinations. The web site offers educational resources for technologists through on-line presentations for continuing education in pediatric CT scanning describing techniques that technologists can employ to reduce dose to their pediatric patients. An example of one...
Words: 2530 - Pages: 11
...of the cervical spine from the skull base to T1. Some studies have also stated that NEXUS and CCR are inadequate and cervical spine fractures cannot be excluded without CT. CT imaging is the preferred method due to its high accuracy, speed, and ability to reconstruct images in the coronal...
Words: 836 - Pages: 4
...X-Radiation Project Abstract This project will look at the history of X-radiation in its notable historical forms and trace the use of the technology all the way to contemporary forms of X-Radiation, including computed tomography. The origins of the two technologies will be traced as well as the improvements that have been made to them over the past number of decades. The importance of the technology will be assessed in terms of its efficiency and usefulness in the context of modern medicine. The finding is that CT, CAT, and X-ray allow for great convenience, lower cost, and higher quality imaging than is possible without these technologies. Background & State of the Art The story of X-rays begins in the late Nineteenth Century when a German professor named Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen introduced the discovery that a cathode ray tube could create a fluorescent glow of crystals that were placed on a surface near the tube (NA, 2014). After giving the cathode ray tube a higher voltage and removing all air from the inside of the tube, the professor found that the tube gave nearby objects a fluorescent glow of light. The upshot for the professor from this improvised experiment was that the tube must be giving off a new kind of ray that scientists were not yet familiar with. The most significant part of Roentgen’s discovery, for modern medical purposes, at least, was that the new ray...
Words: 952 - Pages: 4
...Health Informatics Preparing a patient for a diagnostic technology – Head CT Scan Throughout history, man has striven to explain poor-health and illness. It was originally thought that disease stemmed from being possessed by evil spirits and other supernatural causes. However, these concepts were rejected by the Greek physician Hippocrates around 400 BC in favour of disease having a physical, rational and therefore measurable cause, (Porter, 1994). Yet it was not until 1895 that Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered x-rays and began to revolutionise the assessment process using non-invasive techniques. (Nobel Lectures, 2012). Since then, many types of diagnostic imaging techniques have been discovered and developed which play an integral role in modern medicine. These include Ultrasounds, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, (MRI), Electrocardiograms (ECG) and Electroencephalography, (EEG). This essay will discuss; the rationale of referring a patient for Computerised-Tomography, (CT) scans; the support given throughout the process; evaluation of the benefits and risks of the technique and resulting diagnosis. A 28 year old male was brought into hospital by emergency ambulance after being involved in a motor-cycle accident. He had sustained multiple fractures and a dislocated shoulder. The paramedics reported that he had complained of severe headache and was aggressive and disorientated at the scene. He improved en-route to hospital. However, his mental state deteriorated on...
Words: 2358 - Pages: 10
...has to be operated upon immediately. Preoperative CT scan diagnosis and prompt treatment can lead to a good outcome. Findings of simultaneous ileal and sigmoid ischemia with non-ischemic colon interposed in between should, in an appropriate clinical setting, indicate this condition. The presence of the whirl sign, medially deviated distal descending colon and cecum, and mesenteric vascular structures from the superior mesenteric vessels that converge toward the sigmoid colon on CT scan help clinch the diagnosis. Keywords: Compound volvulus, ileosigmoid knot, intestinal obstruction Go to: ------------------------------------------------- Introduction Ileosigmoid knot (also known as compound volvulus) is an unusual and rare cause of intestinal obstruction.[1,2] In this condition, loops of ileum wrap around the base of a redundant sigmoid colon to form a “knot”. The condition progresses rapidly to gangrene, so early diagnosis and operative treatment are vital. CT scan plays a major role in the evaluation of any acute abdomen.[3] We describe the CT scan features of this rare condition, the awareness of which can help achieve a preoperative diagnosis. Go to: ------------------------------------------------- Case Report A 22-year-old woman presented with a 3-day history of progressive abdominal pain associated with one episode of vomiting. She had no other concurrent disease and no significant past medical or surgical history. On examination, there was mild tenderness in the...
Words: 1596 - Pages: 7
...It is also sometimes used to look at the skull. A neck CT checks the soft tissues of the neck and is frequently used to study a mass or lump in the neck or to look for enlarged glands or lymph nodes. A Chest CT is frequently used to further study an abnormality on a plain chest X-ray. It is also often used to look for enlarged lymph nodes. Pelvic and abdominal CT looks at the abdominal and pelvic organs (such as the liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, and adrenal glands) and the gastrointestinal tract. These studies are often ordered to check for a cause of pain. A sinus CT exam is used to both diagnose sinus disease and to detect an obstruction or narrowing in the sinus drainage pathway. A spine CT test is commonly used to detect the herniated disc or narrowing of the spinal canal (spinal stenosis) in people with neck, back, arm, and/or leg pain. It is also used to detect a fracture or break in the spine. nursing management before CT scan: Explain procedure to the patient and why it is required. Ask the patient to take off the clothing and wear a hospital gown. Ask the patient to remove any metal objects, such as a belt or jewelry because it might interfere with image...
Words: 1102 - Pages: 5
...Given that the growth in the medical industry has expanded substantially enabling different machines to view different aspects of the human anatomy, it is impossible to recommend what scan a person should have without taking into consideration the illness/injury and history of the patient. Without doubt a PET scan should be avoided as much as possible as the radiation the patient is confronted with is equivalent to 8 years of everyday living and substantially larger than other methods of imaging however, the advantage of a PET scan is its ability to show how parts of the body are functioning and detect problems much earlier (NSP Medicine Wise, 2010). Whilst this may be seen as a great advantage, the PET scan is far more dangerous to the human body than any other method of imaging as the gamma rays penetrate structural components of cells and break DNA of biological molecules with the potential to cause mutations and cancer (K. Henderickson, 2014). CT scans can only image half the aspects of the human anatomy as the PET scan yet only project three...
Words: 800 - Pages: 4
...right knee. The patient is now retired but used worked at a bakery that required frequent bending and standing for long periods of time. Physical exam showed a lack of range of motion and revealed mild tenderness to palpation of knees. The patient denies pain upon palpation of surrounding tissue. The patient also denies any recent trauma or injury to her lower, but stated that she did tear her meniscus in her left knee about 15 years ago. PICO: In patients who have suspected knee osteoarthritis is an CT scan alone sufficient for diagnosis based on the specificity and sensitivity of the test....
Words: 1345 - Pages: 6
...sometimes, parents seek the reassurance that might come with a negative test result. The requirements for the diagnosis of Huntington's disease (HD) include medical history, family history, neurological examination, brain imaging testing (including magnetic resonance imaging or MRI and computerized tomography or CT), laboratory tests, and genetic testing (when necessary). Side Effects: • MRI: Small children have to be sedated because they must lay PERFECTLY still (which little kids aren't willing to do) for up to 45 minutes (impossible for even the most patient children), and the machine can freak them out. (It's loud and a very small space.) Side effects of the drugs are sleepiness (obviously), nausea, vomiting, irratibility. Sometime headaches and temporary light sensitivity, but it's rare and depends on the drug they use. • CT scans (also known as CAT scans) create 3-dimensional pictures using ionizing radiation. On a daily basis, the average person is exposed to naturally occurring radiation. However, the amount of radiation used in a CT scan is significantly more than other diagnostic tests. According to the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging, a CT scan of the head exposes a child to the amount of radiation she would naturally experience during approximately eight months. An abdominal CT scan...
Words: 869 - Pages: 4
...The Facts on Renal Cell Carcinoma Carla Henthorn COM/156 5/30/14 Craig Carroll Did you know that the renal cell cancer (RCC) represents 2% of all cancers and about 5% of all epithelial carcinomas (Haase, 2012)? Renal cell carcinoma is a rare but treatable cancer, and collecting duct carcinoma is the rarest of kidney cancers. Renal cell carcinoma and collecting duct carcinoma come in many forms, and can grow to large masses undetected for years without signs or symptoms. By knowing your family history you can assess your risk factors, and possibly prevent getting this disease. Keeping up to date with your yearly exams and tests can prevent or at least catch it early enough to treat and or cure it. In the event you or a loved one does end up with renal cancer, joining a support group such as a greif support, would be beneficial in helping to deal with all the aspects of dealing with having cancer. Renal cell carcinoma is the most common primary malignant (cancerous) renal tumor affecting approximately 170,000 patient per year worldwide (Haase, 2012). With the death toll of about half of that per year. Although renal cell carcinoma is treatable, it can and has gone undetected by signs or symptoms for years. It is not until the patient notices a lump on their side that is uncomfortable when bending over that they suspect something is abnormal. Often the lump is not painful, it is just bothersome. This is how it can fully metastasize (spead to other organs or tissues) before...
Words: 1515 - Pages: 7
...Abstract— Brain hemorrhage is a type of stroke, which occurs due to artery bursting in the brain, causing bleeding in the surrounded tissues. Diagnosing brain hemorrhage, which is mainly through the examination of a CT scan enables the accurate prediction of disease and the extraction of reliable and robust measurement for patients in order to describe the morphological changes in the brain as the recovery progresses. The aim of this project is to help radiologist as well as medical students in diagnosis of brain hemorrhage in more refined manner by feeding CT images & identify the type of brain hemorrhage using watershed algorithm along with artificial neural network. Keywords - Computed tomography (CT), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Back Propagation Network (BPN), Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). I. INTRODUCTION This Brain hemorrhage is a type of stroke, which occurs due to artery bursting in the brain, causing bleeding in the surrounded tissues. The symptoms of brain hemorrhage are a sudden severe headache, Weakness in an arm or leg, nausea or vomiting, changes in vision, difficulty in speaking or understanding speech, difficulty in...
Words: 1573 - Pages: 7
...was likely murdered due to greed and power, while others believe he fell from his chariot or died from an illness. In recent years, there have been several findings by different archaeologists and scientists to see if they could determine the cause of the young king’s death. On March 8, 2005, an Egyptian archaeologist by the name of Zahi Hawass revealed the results of a CT scan which was performed on the pharaoh’s mummy. The scan uncovered no evidence of a blow to the back of the head and no evidence suggesting foul play. However, there was a crack in the skull but it appeared to have been the result of drilling by embalmers. A fracture to the young king’s left thighbone was interpreted as evidence that the pharaoh badly broke his leg shortly before he died and his leg severely became infected. Members of an Egyptian led research team recognized it as a possibility that the fracture was caused by the embalmers. A total of 1700 images were produced of the mummy during the CT scan. According to a recent article in the National Geographic news, in 2006, a team of international scientists revealed another CT scan. It had disproved a popular theory that the Egyptian pharaoh was murdered by a blow to the head more than 3300 years ago. The scientists believed that the most likely explanation for the king’s death at 19 is a thigh fracture that became infected and ultimately...
Words: 670 - Pages: 3
...CT, also known as computed tomography, has many uses in the medical field today. The CT machine looks like a 7-foot doughnut; it has a center circle that has the width of about 4 feet, which is called the gantry. The CT machine uses x-rays and a receiver to collect the images taken. The CT machine can take multiple 1mm to 10mm slices per rotation. This machine is very useful for getting 3D images of the human body. The CT machine can see, with detail, into the human body so radiologists can diagnose different diseases. Unlike regular x-rays, the CT machine can get very detailed images of different types of body parts, inner organs, and artery and veins all within a single scan (Imaginis, 2017). The CT shoots multiple x-rays through the patient while the spinning around the patient. While in rotation, the CT machine collects the x-rays on the other side of the patient to make a 2D image slice of the part scanned. Once the scan of the patient is done, the images are then stitched together by the technologist to make a super detailed image of the body or body parts scanned. The technologist can then form a 3D image of the bones, organs, veins, and arteries within the...
Words: 1015 - Pages: 5
...Appendicitis From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | Appendicitis is a medical emergency characterized by inflammation of the appendix, many cases of which require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to infection and inflammation of the intestinal lining (peritoneum) and eventual sepsis, clinically known as peritonitis which can lead to circulatory shock. Reginald Fitz first described acute and chronic appendicitis in 1886, and it has been recognized as one of the most common causes of severe acute abdominal pain worldwide. A correctly diagnosed non-acute form of appendicitis is known as "rumbling appendicitis". Appendicitis is most common between the ages of 5 and 40; the median age is 28. It tends to affect males, those in lower income groups, and, for unknown reasons, people living in rural areas. The term "pseudoappendicitis" is used to describe a condition mimicking appendicitis. It can be associated with Yersinia enterocolitica. acute appendicitis appendicitis of acute onset, requiring prompt surgery, and usually marked by pain in the right lower abdominal quadrant, referred rebound tenderness, overlying muscle spasm, and cutaneous hyperesthesia. chronic appendicitis 1. that characterized by fibrotic thickening of the organ wall due to previous acute inflammation. 2. formerly, chronic or recurrent pain in the appendiceal area, without evidence of acute...
Words: 4245 - Pages: 17
...PKD. The cause of the disease, the history, symptoms and treatment and preventions had peeked my interest from the day I was diagnosed with. Polycystic kidney disease. The kidneys are vital to human life, our body has two kidneys that are shaped like beans, and they preform many important tasks in our body’s regulation. Our kidneys work to extract waste from our blood. They also form urine, balance our body fluids and balance our electrolytes. In this paper I will discuss polycystic kidney disease, the causes, history, affects to the body, treatment, and prevention for the disease. Polycystic kidney disease is a genetic disorder, which is inherited and affects the kidneys. The disease causes clusters of cysts to grow in the kidneys. The cysts are non-cancerous; the cysts are fluid filled and have a round shape to them. These sacs can range in sizes in the kidneys from...
Words: 642 - Pages: 3
