Standard CT exams require a technologist to manually estimate the appropriate height of the scanning table for each patient -- a task that is naturally subject to human error. Placing a patient even slightly off center can lead to the appearance of imaging artifacts and unnecessary radiation exposure to more sensitive regions of the body.
Hoping to optimize the process of centering patients, Natalia Saltybaeva, PhD, and colleagues from University Hospital Zurich developed an automated, individually tailored positioning protocol. The protocol uses a 3D depth camera to detect the body surface and contour of patients lying on a scanning table, and then determine the ideal table height based on these measurements.
The researchers compared their automated positioning protocol with the conventional method in a cohort of 120 patients who underwent chest and abdominal CT exams at their institution. They found that the automated method led to statistically significant improvements in patient centering, compared with manual positioning. On average, patient centering was off by 5 mm using the automated method and 19 mm with manual positioning.
"The results of the study have shown that this novel approach allows for significant reduction of vertical off-centering compared to the manual positioning performed by technologists and, therefore, serves for better radiation dose utilization," Saltybaeva told AuntMinnie.com.
