Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2016
Keywords:
Cost-effectiveness, CT, Professional issues, Action 3 - Image quality assessment based on clinical indications, Action 4 - Quality of radiological equipment, Education and training
DOI:
10.1594/esi2016/ESI-0044
Description of activity and work performed
Working with clinicians,
COCIR members continue to develop new medical technologies that play a critical role in driving access to healthcare,
increasing efficiency,
improving productivity and progressing patient safety.
- Technology upgrades support a patient-centric approach to care pathways.
- Technology drives dose reduction of >50% in paediatric imaging without a loss of diagnostic quality [1]
COCIR has also been closely monitoring the ageing of medical imaging equipment across Europe since 1996.
Its vendor market intelligence has just revealed that a quarter of the European CT installed base cannot be upgraded with these important dose saving technology advances,
and are therefore inadequate from a dose optimisation and radiation safety perspective and should be considered for replacement.
In essence this is approximately equivalent to 2500 units in Western Europe and 500 units in Eastern Europe.
The highest levels of non-upgradeable CT systems were found in Poland,
Germany,
Italy and Spain.
COCIR National Trade Associations members in Italy (Assobiomedica) and in Spain (Fenin) have conducted further studies in both countries.
For example,
in Italy,
their data has shown that out of 470 CT scanners,
segment “up to 16 slices”,
currently in use,
222 are considered technologically obsolete and exceed the threshold of 7 years of age,
posing questions on their safety,
efficacy and cost of use.
In Spain,
most of the CT equipment installed cannot be considered "low dose" by today's standards.
A study conducted by Fenin highlights that 67% of CT scanners in use are older than 5 years: 27 points higher than COCIR's recommended guidelines and 17 higher than Europe's average.
- [1](1) C.
Saidlear et al,
ECR 2015 / C-1888,
2015