Radiologists Devise New Protocol for Imaging Ebola Patients

A newly devised protocol limits Ebola exposure risk for medical personnel and patients.

American radiologists have set out to find the safest way to image patients with contagious and potentially lethal infectious diseases. The result of the investigators pursuit is a breakthrough that could considerably improve clinicians’ ability to rapidly evaluate patients with suspected Ebola, radiologists have developed a protocol for obtaining chest radiographs using portable computed radiography (CR) technology.

The protocol not only limits the exposure of health personnel and equipment to body fluids, it also minimizes the risk of contaminants leaving the isolation unit by use of thorough decontamination procedures.

The protocol was devised by radiologist from Emory University Hospital (Atlanta, GA, USA). The step-by-step protocol was outlined in an article published ahead of print November 17, 2014, in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

The authors stressed that all radiology departments need to develop similar new protocols for various modalities used in imaging patients with contagious and potentially deadly infectious diseases.

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Emory University Hospital