A team of radiologists recently discovered that a video gaming console peripheral can also come in handy for helping make X-rays safer for children.

By using the Xbox's Kinect sensor, radiologists can measure body-part thickness to get an X-ray faster and more efficiently than ever before.

On the Xbox, the Kinect allows users to play games without using their hands. It scans the user's body and then transfers those images into the system. However, that technology can also help with producing good X-rays.

When taking an X-ray, a radiologist must consider several factors: motion, positioning, field of view and thickness of the body part getting scanned. This often means that the patient must undergo several X-rays to get the perfect view.

However, using something like the Kinect to measure those factors means fewer X-rays, and less exposure to radiation, which is particularly important in scans of children, who have varying degrees of body part size and mass because they range in age from infants to teenagers. Usually, radiologists use steel calipers to measure body part thickness, but it's a tool that often seems scary to children. However, a Kinect can do the same thing invisibly, as well as confirm that a patient is in the perfect position for the X-ray.

Basically, the Kinect takes the trial and error adjustments made during X-rays out of the process, resulting in fewer X-rays and less exposure to radiation.

"Patients, technologists, and radiologists want the best-quality X-rays at the lowest dose possible without repeating images," said Steven Don, M.D., associate professor of radiology at Washington University in St. Louis. "This technology is a tool to help achieve that goal."

Last year, Don and his team combined their own software with the technology of the Microsoft Kinect 1.0 and applied for a patent. The team hopes to upgrade the system soon with Microsoft Kinect 2.0.

"The goal is to produce high-quality X-ray images at a low radiation dose without repeating images," said Don. "It sounds surprising to say that the Xbox gaming system could help us to improve medical imaging, but our study suggests that this is possible."

Kinect isn't new to the medical field. Microsoft recently worked with medical professionals in creating a system that allows them to use their existing technology, such as MRI scanners, with Kinect, allowing them to operate equipment via voice and gesture recognition, thus letting their sterilized hands continue surgery. The Kinect for Windows-based system lets doctors use hand gestures to change, move, or zoom in on CT scans, MRIs, and other medical images for greater accuracy.