Pediatric digital radiography summit overview: state of confusion

On Feb. 4, 2010, the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Radiology held a Pediatric Digital Radiography Summit. The goal was for radiologists, radiologic technologists, medical physicists, and vendor representatives, including engineers, medical physicists and education specialists, to discuss the challenges to achieving the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) principle in pediatric digital radiography and to lay the groundwork for overcoming these obstacles. This article focuses on the state of confusion that exists for radiologists and radiologic technologists who use digital radiography equipment. Radiologists might have a difficult time accepting lower dose (noisy images), and radiologic technologists might respond by increasing patient exposures, which results in excessive patient doses. For reporting exposures, vendors have a history of using proprietary terms that confuse users. In addition, technical parameters cannot be easily exported for quality assurance, and there is no national standard for digital radiography. Presentations in this minisymposium focus on suggestions for the cooperative development of new technical standards, education and training to improve the quality of digital radiography in pediatric patients and promote radiation protection for children.