As a service to our customers we want to be sure everyone is aware of a couple of the ACR requirements for accreditation. This is from the ACR Nuclear Medicine/PET Accreditation Program Requirements, 2/6/13. “A physics survey must be performed on each Gamma Camera or PET unit at least annually.” This includes the annual camera …
Continue reading “What kind of routine QC testing is required?”
Yes. It is very easy to top of the phantom using a syringe and distilled water. There is a commercially available refill kit. NPC does not recommend purchasing this kit. The kit costs over $200 and consists of nothing more than a few ml of distilled water and two syringes. We are currently working on …
The manufacturer, JM Specialty Parts, can refill the phantom for you. Call them at 858-794-7200 for instructions on shipping the phantom.
A small air bubble isn’t a problem. The most obvious drawback of a bubble is that once the bubble becomes large enough, you can no longer see the top of the phantom. This prevents you from measuring the phantom diameter on slice # 5 from the top to the bottom. However, unless the bubble is …
Continue reading “My ACR phantom has an air bubble in it. What should I do?”
The flexible, disposable, commercially available shields are placed over the breasts, thyroid, or eyes to reduce the organ dose to the specific region. Whether or not they are effective vs. simply reducing the mAs per rotation is still being debated. Of course there is a degradation in image quality, as will always be the case …
Continue reading “Are bismuth shields, for eyes, breasts, and/or thyroid, a good idea?”
Effective April 15, 2009, new ODH regulations require any facility who provides CT services to develop an ALARA program for CT patients. The program must be developed in cooperation with a radiation expert (medical physicist) and must be reviewed annually. That’s about all the regulation says; there is not much detail, and they have not …
You must maintain QC records for all printers that you do print to, not all those that you can print to. For example, assume there are 5 mammography facilities within your group, each facility has a printer, and all are linked via a data network. If Facility 1rints its own films, but occasionally has Facility …
Yes you need a printer. MQSA regulations require it. The printer does not necessarily have to be located at your facility, but you need to have ready access to it if it is located at another location. The printer has to be able to provide diagnostic quality images and must be QC’ed as required by …
The most common oversights in the installation of new FFDM units relate to the hard-copy printer. Since the radiologists read mammograms on the soft copy workstations, it’s common for facilities to consider of the printer as an afterthought. (See FAQ on this subject). Other items to remember: As in all mammography installations, everything has to …
No. In the fall of 2010, the popular TV doc, Mehmet Oz, aired a program in which he recommended to his viewers that they request thyroid shields be provided during screening mammography examinations. This is an erroneous recommendation and not based on scientific fact. The radiation dose to the thyroid from scatter and tube leakage …
Continue reading “Should mammography patients be given thyroid shields?”
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