Enhancing Patient Experience in CT Imaging

Abstract

Cardiac CT is the most complicated procedure for CT imaging and Paediatric cardiac CT is even more challenging due to the nature of the patients who may not able to obey the command and keep still during the whole examination procedure. Several challenges for Paediatric cardiac CT includes: The timing of blood flow may be different significantly for patients even with similar body size; wide range of pathology and congenital anomalies for paediatrics and most important of all is the size and body weight of the patient may pose a limitation on the rate and dose of contrast that can be delivered during the cardiac CT examination. In 2019, Hong Kong Children's Hospital commenced the CT services for Paediatric cardiac patients. Through the collaboration of Radiographers and Radiologists, we have developed a set of protocols to optimize the radiation dose, contrast dose and examination routines for our Paediatric patients with different body size and clinical conditions. This presentation aims at providing a holistic approach for Paediatric CT imaging with an in house developed theory to optimize the contrast injection rate and dosage as well as optimizing the use of kVp for imaging to achieve maximum contrast enhancement with reduction of radiation dosage to the patient.