Quality Improvement Report: Improving Retrieval Time for CT Supplies by Using 5S.

The CT supply room is a critical resource in the imaging workflow. However, the supply room for the two CT scanners at our cancer center, one of which is used for our busy interventional service, was disorganized, and the time spent searching for the appropriate equipment could potentially lead to delays in service and contribute to patient safety risks. The purpose of this project was to reduce the time to find supplies and to increase the satisfaction of CT technologists and medical providers by reorganizing and clearly labeling supplies using "lean" principles. A multidisciplinary team was assembled to reorganize the CT storage using lean 5S methodology (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain). Baseline and postintervention analysis of the impact of supply reorganization and labeling was performed using three methods: (a) the time recorded for a supply retrieval scavenger hunt, (b) a spaghetti diagram of participant movement during the scavenger hunt, and (c) satisfaction surveys of radiologists and staff. Seven radiology residents participated in the timed supply retrieval scavenger hunt before and after the intervention. Spaghetti diagrams demonstrated a reduction in redundant foot traffic for supply retrieval after the intervention. There was a 61.7% decrease in the average time to retrieve the 10 items in the scavenger hunt (P < .01). Satisfaction surveys after the intervention had statistically significant positive responses compared with those before the intervention. ©RSNA, 2024.

Diagnostic reference levels and median doses for common clinical indications of CT: findings from an international registry.

OB JECTIVES: The European Society of Radiology identified 10 common indications for computed tomography (CT) as part of the European Study on Clinical Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs, EUCLID), to help standardize radiation doses. The objective of this study is to generate DRLs and median doses for these indications using data from the UCSF CT International Dose Registry. METHODS: Standardized data on 3.7 million CTs in adults were collected between 2016 and 2019 from 161 institutions across seven countries (United States of America (US), Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, UK, Israel, Japan). DRLs (75th percentile) and median doses for volumetric CT-dose index (CTDIvol) and dose-length product (DLP) were assessed for each EUCLID category (chronic sinusitis, stroke, cervical spine trauma, coronary calcium scoring, lung cancer, pulmonary embolism, coronary CT angiography, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), colic/abdominal pain, appendicitis), and US radiation doses were compared with European. RESULTS: The number of CT scans within EUCLID categories ranged from 8,933 (HCC) to over 1.2 million (stroke). There was greater variation in dose between categories than within categories (p < .001), and doses were significantly different between categories within anatomic areas. DRLs and median doses were assessed for all categories. DRLs were higher in the US for 9 of the 10 indications (except chronic sinusitis) than in Europe but with a significantly higher sample size in the US. CONCLUSIONS: DRLs for CTDIvol and DLP for EUCLID clinical indications from diverse organizations were established and can contribute to dose optimization. These values were usually significantly higher in the US than in Europe. KEY POINTS: • Registry data were used to create benchmarks for 10 common indications for CT identified by the European Society of Radiology. • Observed US radiation doses were higher than European for 9 of 10 indications (except chronic sinusitis). • The presented diagnostic reference levels and median doses highlight potentially unnecessary variation in radiation dose.

Imaging of Diseases of the Large Airways.

Imaging of the large airways is key to the diagnosis and management of a wide variety of congenital, infectious, malignant, and inflammatory diseases. Involvement can be focal, regional, or diffuse, and abnormalities can take the form of masses, thickening, narrowing, enlargement, or a combination of patterns. Recognition of the typical morphologies, locations, and distributions of large airways disease is central to an accurate imaging differential diagnosis.

3D-multidetector CT angiography in the evaluation of potential donors for living donor lung transplantation.

INTRODUCTION: In living donor lung transplant, donor lobectomies from 2 donors provide right and left lower lobes for transplantation. In the past, routine evaluation of pulmonary anatomy was not performed preoperatively. Intraoperatively, surgeons were often forced to sacrifice the lingular artery or right middle lobe segmental artery to obtain an adequate arterial cuff for safe reimplantation. This study was performed to evaluate the utility of preoperative 3D-multidetector CT angiography (3D-MDCTA) as a noninvasive method of assessing pulmonary arteries to improve donor selection and surgical planning for living lung donors. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Five potential lung donors for 2 recipients were included in the study. CT scanning with 4 channel multidetector-row CT was performed, using a modified pulmonary embolism protocol. Post-processing was performed using volume rendering techniques on a commercially available workstation. RESULTS: 3D-MDCT demonstrated that there are a number of variations in pulmonary arterial anatomy and that ideal anatomy was seldom encountered. Comparison of different donors determined which lower lobes were most favorable for transplantation. Surgery confirmed the accuracy of 3D-MDCTA. There were no pulmonary arterial complications, and no vessels were sacrificed. CONCLUSION: Safely explanting lower lobes from living donors for lung transplantation poses challenges not encountered in harvesting cadaveric donors or performing lobectomies for malignancy. 3D-MDCTA of pulmonary arteries can noninvasively delineate the often-complex pulmonary anatomy, which may assist in donor selection as well as reduce donor intraoperative and postoperative vascular complications.