• The personalized exposure prescription method for X-ray imaging is an effective tool for reducing radiation to patients during radiography
• Radiation doses to patients can drastically be reduced from current levels of clinical X-ray imaging, without compromising diagnostic accuracy
• Potential impact on human health is enormous given 78 per cent of all imaging procedures globally are X-ray imaging

A Charles Sturt University (Charles Sturt) research academic and his four colleagues in Taiwan have received a major international award and recognition for their ground-breaking work on X-ray radiation imaging.

The American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) awarded Dr Xiaoming Zheng in the Charles Sturt School of Dentistry and Health Sciences in Wagga Wagga and his four research colleagues in Taiwan the ‘2018 Radiologic Technology Distinguished Author Award in Honour of Jean I Widger’.

The award is for the most significant research article published each year, has a US$1,000 prize, and is determined by the editorial board of the Radiologic Technology journal.

In the article ‘Personal Exposure Prescription Method Reduces Dose in Radiography’, published in the May/June 2018 issue of Radiologic Technology, the authors concluded that the personalized exposure prescription method is an effective tool for reducing radiation to patients during radiography.

Dr Zheng (pictured) said, “Our research evaluated the effectiveness of an automatic, personalized exposure prescription method designed to reduce radiation dose during radiography examinations.

“Using standard imaging parameters of average-sized patients, we measured individual body-part thicknesses or imaging regions of 116 patients and calculated each patient’s exposure amount.

“We used the data to develop each patient’s personalized exposure prescription, and we found no difference in image quality between diagnostic images obtained using the prescription method and those obtained using standard protocols.”

The authors concluded that the personalized exposure prescription method is an effective tool for reducing radiation to patients during radiography.

“The implications for patients are that the radiation doses to patients can drastically be reduced from current level of clinical X-ray imaging, without compromising diagnostic accuracy,” Dr Zheng said.

“In turn, it will drastically reduce cancer risk of patients undertaking X-ray imaging.

“Our finding’s potential impact on human health is enormous considering that 78 per cent of all imaging procedures are X-ray imaging globally.

“It is a clinical confirmation of my previously derived physical law that governs the clinical X-ray imaging. (See those two papers here: http://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-017-0413-6; and http://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-018-0457-2 ).

“Moreover, it is a personalised exposure prescription (personalised medicine) with precision (precision medicine).

“It completely eliminates the possibility of ‘dose creep’ in clinical practice, and made the ‘automatic exposure control’ in radiographic imaging redundant.”

Dr Zheng also emphasised that besides reducing radiation doses to patients, that there may be significant financial savings to patients and health systems to administer radiological procedures.

“Reduce doses in medical X-ray imaging will also prolong the life-time of imaging systems, in particular, the X-ray tubes,” Dr Zheng said.

“The economic implication should not be under-estimated considering the huge numbers of imaging systems globally.

“As already noted, current medicine is moving towards increasingly personalised medicine and precision medicine, so this work is a timely tool to achieve just that.”