A Dose Management Online System for quality assurance in an emergency radiology facility

Congress:

EuroSafe Imaging 2018

Poster Number:

ESI-0058

Type:

EuroSafe Imaging

Keywords:

Diagnostic procedure, CT, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Action 5 - Performance indicators for radiation protection management, Action 8 - Radiation protection training and learning material, Action 2 - Clinical diagnostic reference levels (DRLs), Action 9 - Development of criteria for safe imaging procedures, Action 6 - Education and training in medical radiation protection, Action 3 - Optimisation, diagnostic reference levels, image quality, Dosimetry, Radiation safety, Quality assurance

Authors:

C. Ansón Marcos, P. Garcia Castañon, A. Viñals Muñoz, P. Rodriguez Carnero, M. L. España Lopez, D. Hernández González

DOI:

10.1594/esi2018/ESI-0058

DOI-Link:

https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/esi2018/ESI-0058

Table 1: Alarms percentage for each study

Fig. 1: Mean DLP values from alarms and no alarms for the most frequent studies...

Background/introduction

As part of optimization principle in medical exposures, Euratom Directive) highlights the importance of Quality Assurance (QA) programmes and assessment of patient doses in diagnostic radiology. Within QA framework, patient dosimetry plays a crucial role since it may represent an indicator to evaluate the optimization of protection in a radiology department. Computed tomography (CT) is nowadays widely used in radiology because of its fast performance and high quality diagnostic images. Nevertheless, radiation doses associated with CT examinations are relatively high, so the dose optimization to...

Description of activity and work performed

Material The study has been performed at the Radiology and Emergency radiology Departments of a University Hospital. A total of 16119 CT studies performed during one year have been included. These studies were performed at a Siemens Somatom Sensation 64 unit, placed in Radiology Department, and at a Siemens Somatom Sensation 40 unit placed in the Emergency Department. The dose data and other study parameters are automatically exported to DoseWatch, software developed by General Electric (GE®) for monitoring the radiation dose to patients. This software...

Conclusion and recommendations

The use of dose management system for data monitoring allowed a fast reviewing of the examination doses. The use of, not only Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) but also alarm levels for optimizations purposes allows to easily detect unusual doses or even overexposures. Education and training efforts have to be made in order to improve CT protocols and categorization of studies in Emergency Department as part of the QA programme.

Personal/organisational information

Ms Cristina Ansón Marcos. Medical physicist trainee Medical Physics and Radiation Protection Department University Hospital La Princesa, Madrid (Spain) C/ Diego de León, 62, 28006, Madrid (Spain) [email protected] +34649626555

References

[1] European Commission. Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013 laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionizing radiation, and repealing Directives 89/618/Euratom, 90/641/Euratom, 96/29/Euratom, 97/43/Euratom and 2003/122/Euratom; 13:14-15 [2] IAEA. Human Health Series No. 19. Quality Assurance Programme for Computed Tomography: Diagnostic and Therapy Applications. 2012