FLUG 2020 POSTPONED
Due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak the FLUG 2020 meeting due to take place on 1st May has been postponed until the autumn. Once the new date is confirmed we will provide an update.
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Nominations closed
Closing date: 29th Febuary
Nominations are now closed for one of the FLUG officer posts. As no additional nominations were received Martin Williams has been re-elected. ...
Call for Abstracts – Extended!
Abstracts of up to 500 words in English are now invited for submission until 29th February. We are initially seeking contributions of approximately 15-20 minutes on any subject of your choosing but especially any work on testing or optimising rotational angiography or other 3D fluoroscopic applications.
We are also wanting to hold a Round Table discussion on issues that you think are important and will be taking offers of a short [<5 minutes] introduction to Round Table issues.
The abstracts will be reviewed and all authors will be notified. Authors of abstracts that successfully passed the review process, will be invited to present their work as an oral presentation.
You should receive a confirmation from us that we have your abstract. If you do not, or you have any other questions, get in touch at team@flug.org.uk...
Officer elected
Andy Rogers has been elected unopposed to replace Ana.
We thank Ana for her hard work, and welcome Andy to the management of FLUG.
Andy is currently the Lead Interventional MPE at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and also the immediate past-President of the British Institute of Radiology. He currently chairs the UK working group investigating how best to set DRLs in interventional procedures. He was recently on an international standards organisation IEC working group to represent the UK in a project looking at the use of dose data held in digital imaging modalities along with being a member of an ICRP working group that has published a report on Diagnostic Reference Levels. He is also a full member of the IEC Maintenance Team for interventional x-ray equipment. His current research interests are observer studies, skin dose assessment and optimisation in interventional cardiology and radiology.
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Video Swallow Protocol
At FLUG 2017 Hazel Gray from Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust presented her work on the effects of higher pulse rates on radiation dose and detection of aspiration and penetration in video fluoroscopy. For full details please refer to the slides that Hazel presented at FLUG 2017 which are available for members to view.
Hazel has kindly agreed to share their protocol which is available below.
We would ask that if any members do make use of Hazel’s protocol that they kindly contact her directly. FLUG officers can provide contact details on request.
Feature image source: Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation Therapy for Dysphagia Caused by Wilson's Disease.
Lee SY, Yang HE, Yang HS, Lee SH, Jeung HW, Park YO - Ann Rehabil Med (2012). CC-BY-NC 3.0...
FLUG Meeting 2017
FLUG successfully held our first annual meeting on the 23rd of November. Thanks to all the speakers for submitting their talks and delegates for making it a very interesting day.
The slides from the day are now available below or here.
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FLUG 2017 – IPEM Evidence Based QA Working Party – Fluoroscopy and Fluorography – dosimetry; Mark Worrall
Background
There is little evidence in peer reviewed literature to support the efficacy of many of the tests of x-ray equipment performed routinely by medical physics departments. Current guidance is based on the substantial experience of the members of working parties involved in writing IPEM report 91 and the IPEM report 32 series. The aim of this working party is to produce evidence that would support any future revisions of IPEM Reports 91 and 32. The specific focus of this workstream is on the efficacy of routine tests in fluoroscopy and fluorography.
Methods
A pro-forma for data collection was devised, tested and revised by the working party. The final pro-forma contained fields to collect data relating to all tests routinely undertaken on fluoroscopy and fluorography equipment. The fields were designed to accept simple pass/fail or the quantitative result, whichever was most appropriate for each specific test.
The pro-forma was developed in such a way that as much or as little information could...
FLUG 2017 – IPEM Evidence Based QA Working Party – Fluoroscopy and Fluorography – image quality; Daniel Shaw
Background
There is little evidence in peer reviewed literature to support the efficacy of many of the tests of x-ray equipment performed routinely by medical physics departments. Current guidance is based on the substantial experience of the members of working parties involved in writing IPEM report 91 and the IPEM report 32 series. The aim of this working party is to produce evidence that would support any future revisions of IPEM Reports 91 and 32. The specific focus of this workstream is on the efficacy of routine tests in fluoroscopy and fluorography.
Methods
A pro-forma for data collection was devised, tested and revised by the working party. The final pro-forma contained fields to collect data relating to all tests routinely undertaken on fluoroscopy and fluorography equipment. The fields were designed to accept simple pass/fail or the quantitative result, whichever was most appropriate for each specific test.
The pro-forma was developed in such a way that as much or as little information could...
FLUG 2017 – A Novel Quantitative Measurement of Image Quality in Fluoroscopy; Patrick Kenny
Measuring image quality on modern flat panel fluoroscopy systems is challenging. Accurate measurements using the Leeds TO10 must use a small range of prescribed settings of beam quality (kV & added copper). Often these are not always easily achieved on newer systems. Also, TO10 analysis involves estimating the Threshold Contrast Index HT(A), which is a subjective estimate of the image’s signal to noise ratio. It is the inverse of the product of the square root of the disc area times its nominal contrast, as derived from Rose’s model of imaging. Finally, a typical measurement error of about 15% is associated with such an estimate of HT(A).
More recently we are beginning to use the NEMA XR-27 protocol in which ‘for-processing’ images can be used to calculate MTF, NNPS & DQE etc. However, while representing a welcome development, such measurements do not address the effects of image processing applied prior to image presentation. It is in some ways an interim...