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A Summit will be held in Atlanta by American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) on April 29-30, with world's leading experts on medical imaging to discuss guidelines to work with CT scans

CT scans are critical for guiding the treatment of car accidents victims, people diagnosed with cancer, blood clots in their lungs, and numerous other symptoms and conditions.

The goal of the summit is to build a base for finalising a set of consensus protocols, which will help to ensure that life-saving CT exams can always be done as safely and effectively as possible. These protocols or scan instructions vary considerably according to the particular procedure, the age and body type of the patient, and the make and model of the CT scanner. Earlier the hospitals and imaging centers have developed their own protocols, typically based on the ones that come from their system's manufacturer. 

The summit will begin by reviewing the fundamental principles of protocol design and will then examine protocols for the most common types of CT examinations, from routine imaging of the head and body, to newer applications such as cardiac CT and CT perfusion imaging. As the highest dose CT procedure, the AAPM has started their protocol optimization with CT perfusion. Their consensus guidelines will soon be publicly available resource to help practices nationwide be sure they are performing this examination correctly. 

American Association of Physicists in Medicine with support from the American College of Radiology and the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance a division of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, the trade group for the electrical and medical equipment manufacturing industry is funding the summit . The summit has been endorsed by several leading societies concerned with medical imaging and radiation, including the American Board of Radiology Foundation, the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors, the Health Physics Society, and the Radiological Society of North America. 

"This will move us a long way forward," says William Hendee, Ph.D., the third co-organizer of the summit.