The Swedish Medical Products Agency, based on EU Regulation, prepares recommendations on the use of contrast agents for children. The barium sulphate suspension with registered trademark Mixobar was deregistered January 31, 2019, and is no longer provided in the market. Therefore, our center is substituting with Polibar (TM), the only alternative on the market.

For pediatric fluoroscopy, our center uses a dedicated Artis Zee equipment (Siemens Healthcare GMbH). A difference in image quality in patient examinations has been noted after the change of contrast agents, with the use of the same organ program selection. Therefore, the optimization team (medical physicist, radiologist, radiographer) decided to investigate further how image quality correlates to the different contrast agents.

A phantom (figure 2) was designed for the study. The phantom consisted of 5 plastic bottles containing the contrast agents Mixobar and Polibar in two different concentrations, respectively, and one bottle filled with water. The whole phantom was positioned in air to simulate a patient's different body tissues.