SEATTLE - Bennie Jeffries has been having CT scans for the last four years. He has COPD, a lung disease brought on by smoking and work exposure to asbestos.
"For certain types of diagnoses and diseases, patients get scanned repeatedly, every six months for example, in certain types of diseases and over a lifetime that can add up," said Dr. Bill Shuman of UW Medical Center Radiology.
Using a new technique developed at the University of Washington, along with the latest CT machine from GE, UW radiologists have figured out how to reduce radiation exposure by 60 percent without sacrificing the quality of the scan.
"In the end, The prettiness of the image is not the ultimate goal, the ultimate goal is the diagnostic power and how CT can result in a more rapid, accurate diagnosis that gets us to better therapies sooner," said Dr. Shuman.
Dr. Shuman says the approach works for all types of CT scans, but is especially important for certain cases.
"In children it's very true for the whole body, the female breast, the gonads other tissues in the abdomen are radiation sensitive so you want to get as low as you possible can without compromising the diagnostic power of the CT scan," he said.
Dr. Shuman says if patients are told they need a ct scan, they should ask their doctors if it's really necessary and if so, can they get one with a lower dose of radiation.
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