Purpose
Radiation dose remains a major concern in CT imaging.
To date is quite difficult to sufficiently track cumulative radiation dose.
With the use of radiation dose management software this becomes more efficient.
As during daily routine patients often undergo multiple CT examinations within a short time frame,
cummulative radiation dose might add up to high dose values.
Thus the purpose was to evaluate patients who received a cumulative effective dose of more than 100 mSv with repeat CT examinations.
Methods and materials
15000 consecutive CT examinations were systematically analyzed using a dedicated dose monitoring software (RadimetricsTM,
Bayer Healthcare) within a time period between 08/2013-08/2014.
All patients with a cumulative effective dose above 100 mSv were identified.
Besides patient specific parameters (sex,
age,
weight) patients were analyzed with respect to cumulative effective dose,
number of CT scans and scan series,
dose per CT scan,
time interval of the scans,
clinical scan indications and anatomical scan regions,
respectively.
Results
A small fraction (0,27%) of forty-one patients were identified (63% male,
mean age 62,
range 24-83,
mean weight 82kg).
On average,
these patients received 8.5 CTs (range 2-20) with 3.5 series per scan within a time frame of 172 days (range 8-320).
Mean cumulative effective dose was 132 mSv (range 103-301).
Most frequent scan indications were: oncology,
abdominal imaging for abscess and drainage as well as complications after surgery.
Most frequent scan region was the abdomen (n=150) with an average effective dose of 13mSv (range...
Conclusion
Only in a fraction of patients cumulative dose can become very high.
As clinical indications are justifying each examination and average radiation dose per scan was acceptable,
these cumulative doses may represent common clinical practice in severely ill patients.
Personal information
M.
Das,
CRLP.
Jeukens,
RS.
Schnerr,
S.
Niesen,
JE.
Wildberger
[email protected]
Department of Radiology
Maastricht University Medical Center
P.O.
Box 5800
6202 AZ Maastricht
The Netherlands
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