Siemens Healthcare has launched SIERRA (Siemens Radiation Reduction Alliance) and established an expert panel to advance CT dose reduction.

The new Low Dose Expert Panel includes 15 specialists in radiology, cardiology and physics, who are internationally recognized for their publications on the subject of CT dose. The panel’s objective is to generate proposals for how manufacturers may develop their technology and help users better adapt their procedures to bring about dose reduction in CT.

According to the company, one of the most important suggestions from the first meeting of the Low Dose Expert Panel in May concerned methods to increase clinical utilization of the many CT dose reduction technologies that are already available.

In its first round of discussions last month, the panel identified several action items:

• To establish a baseline of dose levels for the ten most commonly performed CT exams, the group agreed to establish and contribute to an international, multi-institutional dose registry. As a next step, the values obtained can help to establish reference doses, with the potential to lower radiation exposure in clinical practice.
• The participating institutions will share their CT scan protocols for the 10 most commonly performed exams on a central website as a first step.
• Siemens will develop a low-dose educational program in collaboration with the involved institutions. Trainers specializing in dose reduction technology will be available to work with customers to train personnel, optimize scan protocols and implement dose reduction procedures.

The panel’s members are:

• Hatem Alkadhi, MD, University Hospital Zürich, Switzerland;
• Christoph Becker, MD, Ludwig Maximilian University, Germany;
• Elliot Fishman, MD, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore;
• Donald Frush, MD, Duke University in Durham, N.C.;
• Jörg Hausleiter, MD, German Heart Center Munich;
• Willi Kalender, PhD, University of Erlangen, Germany;
• Harold Litt, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia;
• Cynthia McCollough, PhD, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.;
• Alec Megibow, MD, NYU-Langone Medical Center in New York City;
• Michael Recht, MD, NYU-Langone Medical Center in New York City;
• Dushyant Sahani, MD, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston;
• U. Joseph Schoepf, MD, Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C.;
• Marilyn Siegel, MD, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in St. Louis;
• Aaron Sodickson, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston; and
• Kheng-Thye Ho, MD, Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore.