How CT Technologists, MRI Technologists, Mammographers and Ultrasonographers Are Affected by Obesity
This blog is now focused on laboratory specialties. This article is here for your information only, as jobs are no longer provided for any radiation technician specialties.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers thirty percent of American adults to be obese, and many areas of imaging are struggling to provide these people with good images and equipment that fits them.
Excess fat often impacts image quality, causing the patient to need more tests and sometimes a longer hospital stay. Also, equipment is stressed more and needs to be replaced more often when being used on obese patients.
The larger the body, the harder it is for an ultrasonographer to get a clear picture. Also, it is more physically demanding for an ultrasonographer to image an obese person, because they must push as close to the internal structures as possible, so if a person is very overweight, the ultrasonographer has to push as far into the excess fat as they can.
As long as the patient fits into the machine, a CT technologist or MRI technologist isn’t affected as much as an ultrasonographer, but there are still issues. A CT technologist can adjust the scan time and range to image large patients more successfully, but this requires that th CT technologist be very knowledgeable and it requires that a larger dose of radiation be given to the patient. MRI technologists will probably be impacted by large patients the least, because machines are coming out in models offering better service for large patients.
Large patients are also a challenge for a mammographer because positioning is tricky and patients get a false positive twenty percent more often than normal or underweight patients do.
There are some advances being made to improve imaging for large patients, but they come at a higher health care cost.
Learn about hiring a CT technologist, MRI technologist, mammographer, or ultrasonographer.
- Long, Sarah (2006, October 2) Limited by Body Habitus. Advance for Imaging and Radiation Thereapy Professionals, 21-23
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