Computed Tomography (CT) has been one of the most important diagnostic imaging techniques. It generates 3D 
images of body organs allowing doctors to be able to determine diseased conditions in body in a much easier way. CT has helped in diagnosing a wide range of conditions starting from broken bones until detecting vascular blockage and tumors. However, CT scan delivers much radiation doses than conventional X-ray in order to produce those highly detailed images. Concerns have been raised recently regarding the safety of the technique as high radiation doses can result in serious complication. Experts are currently discussing designing measures to minimize the delivered radiation doses, especially to children, while not affecting the quality of the generated images.
Realizing this, Penrose-St. Francis Health Services announced that it has recently invested $750,000 in order to produce software that is able to reduce radiation doses, delivered to patients, by up to 40%, according to Dr. Eric Weidman, a radiologist. He said “There’s no magic bullet, but we want to minimize radiation exposure, yet get a good diagnostic image,” adding “We’ve gotten it down by 30% since before we had the software; our goal is to get it down to 40% across the board.” The recently developed software is a program called Image Gently. The program aims to reduce radiation doses delivered to children during procedures that are accompanied with high radiation exposure, such as CT, Nuclear imaging and fluoroscopy. Experts at Penrose-St. Francis and radiologists at Memorial Health System were also contributing in developing Image Gently. Scott Smith, radiology educator for Memorial, said “A big part of that we changed protocols we were using on children” he added “We eliminated a lot of studies and parts of studies, and made them shorter. We changed the amount we used so that it was weight-based.”
According to Dr. Smith, radiologists now are determining radiation doses, delivered to children, according to their weight. They are also making sure than when children undergo CT scans, they are to be immobilized, to limit their movement while images are generated and thus reduce the need to repeat the procedure. Dr. Smith concluded “We’ve been revising all protocols to address patient size,” Image Gently is going to significantly improve the saftey profile of CT from now on.