[Development of a prevention of body movement fixation appliance in leg digital subtraction angiography].

In the peripheral angiography to evaluate blood flow below the knee levels in patients with arteriosclerosis obliterans, a motion artifact occurs as a result of body movements of a patient in normal fixation. This sometimes makes a correct evaluation difficult. Therefore, we developed a fixed appliance which can restrain body movement without affecting image quality and blood flow in digital subtraction angiography of a leg. The appliance is filled with the styrofoam of 1 mm diameter in a sealed bag, after air is aspirated from inside the bag. The appliance is stiffened to fit the shape of the crus. We measured signal to noise ratio / contrast to noise ratio / a resolution limit by visual evaluation to examine the influence of the image before and after usage of this appliance. In addition, the blood velocity of the dorsalis artery in ultrasound was measured to examine the effect on the blood flow. As a result, the fixed appliance did not affect blood flow in peripheral angiography to evaluate the clinical significance, the usual 5-point evaluate scale was used. The scale was significantly improved (p <0.01) after usage of this appliance. The newly developed fixed appliance for digital subtraction angiography of a leg is useful to avoid motion artifacts in clinical settings.

[Importance of an initial check-up for diagnostic radiology apparatus management].

The management of apparatus for diagnostic imaging is an important job for radiological technologists. In the last 10 years we have encountered 2227 malfunctions in 3652 days. We detected 163 cases at the initial check-up, which accounted for 7.3% of total cases. By performing an initial check-up, we detected one malfunction every 21 days and were able to keep the effects of mishaps to a minimum, prevent accidents, and obtain stable-quality images.