Bridging what clinicians see and what physicists and engineers need to know

The foundation

X-ray dose optimisation has been talked about in radiology for decades, but putting it into practice has been elusive. Without image quality data that is relevant to clinical users, physicists and engineers alike, conversations about acceptable image quality don’t connect. We accepted the challenge of bridging the gap between what clinicians see and what radiographers, physicists and engineers need to know on the path to optimisation in radiology practice.

We also knew that without accurate knowledge of patient size, a critical piece of the optimisation jigsaw would still be missing. The most relevant measure of patient size is not height, weight or age, but the amount of tissue the x-ray beam passes through during image formation. We performed the large-scale Monte Carlo computational simulations needed to calculate the amount of tissue in the x-ray beam from broad-beam x-ray transmission. The results are built into the MyXrayDose website, enabling automated, accurate quantification of patient tissue thickness as seen by the x-ray beam.

Design philosophy

One of our design objectives is an image quality and dose management service that clinical users want to use, because it delivers useful results and is a pleasure to use. If we achieve that, meeting the other organisational and regulatory dose monitoring and reporting requirements follows with greater accuracy and minimal effort.

Because we are forging a path into new territory, we use an agile design methodology, and customer feedback is an integral part of ongoing development.

Our team

Our design team is made up of practising accredited radiology medical physicists, programmers and radiology professionals. Together we have many decades of experience working in radiology and cardiology services, and we understand the pressures and complexity of these environments. Feedback from our customers is an integral part of our agile, responsive design process.