February 2, 2012 – Health and environmental concerns were raised after a radiation detector at a Waste Management Inc. (WMI) facility led to the discovery of an early radiation therapy medical kit someone threw out in the trash in Pennsylvania. It contained 1 curie of radium-226, which the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said is equivalent to having more than 100 computed tomography (CT) scans at once.

A picture archiving and communication system (PACS) comprises a multitude of different devices working together to eliminate the use of physical films generated by different imaging modalities by digitizing them. This brings ease and convenience in the economical storage and transmission of these digital images, as the need to file, retrieve or transport the physical films is eliminated.

Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) emerged as a new way to treat patients in the late 1990s and garnered attention because it offered the possibility to avoid radiating healthy tissue with more accuracy than conventional radiation therapy techniques. As a highly conformal 3-D therapy, its precise targeting of a tumor allows higher radiation doses to be delivered more safely.

Our hospital, Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Ill., recently implemented digital radiography (DR) systems in our general radiology rooms, emergency department (ED) and outpatient imaging center. We expected to achieve a more efficient imaging workflow — but the improvements were even more dramatic than we expected.