Dr. Charlotte Hagen

    Computed tomography, otherwise known as CT scans are popular in medical practice as they give healthcare workers a look at bones and other internal structures of a body without having to physically go inside. However, this seemingly noninvasive technology actually poses some concerns because the x-rays involved expose patients to relatively high levels of ionizing radiation. Enter Dr. Charlotte Hagen and her colleagues at University College London, who are working to develop a less harmful technique to carry out CT scans! Their approach is referred to as "cycloidal" and this new CCT method is simple enough to be implemented in the hardware that's already out there.

    Their CCT involves masking some of the radiation by placing a shield in front of the x-ray beam to protect the patient. Unfortunately, getting a high resolution image from these weakened beams is rather challenging and technicians would have to use a process known as "dithering" which involves more stopping/starting and slower movements in lateral and angular increments around the subject. This ultimately does little to reduce a patient's net exposure to the radiation. Hagen and her team figured out a way to keep the protective mask but to avoid dithering by moving the x-ray beam both laterally and angularly at the same time. The so-called cycloidal method allows for 50% or less of the radiation that a patient would otherwise be exposed to with dithering for the same resolution image.

    In regard to her background, Hagen is based at UCL in the department of medical physics and bioengineering. She has her name attached to nearly 60 publications and much of her work centers around x-ray imaging. In 2018, she was one of seven people to be awarded a fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering which lets her undergo five years of funded research with 3D imaging techniques for tissue engineering. Other than this, she seems to be rather illusive as my investigation into more of her history took me to many dead ends. In any case, her work is impressive and a good reminder that we can improve upon existing technologies. Just the other day I had to have an x-ray for a foot injury and while I was acutely aware of the radiation I was going to be exposed to, I went along with it because I didn't feel like there was any other option. Knowing now that there are people like Dr. Hagen working on ways to lessen the harmful impacts of x-rays without compromising the quality of the image resolution is exciting!

Works Cited:

Aut, M. (2020, July 30). New beam-masking technique reduces radiation exposure during medical imaging. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.1.20200730a/full/

Ucl. (2019, February 07). Charlotte Hagen. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-physics-biomedical-engineering/case-studies/2018/aug/charlotte-hagen

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charlotte_Hagen