Keywords:
Radioprotection / Radiation dose, CT, Radiation safety, Quality assurance
Authors:
S.-W. Yoon1, J. Kim2, J. Kim3, S.-K. Lee3; 1Gyunggi-Do/KR, 2Chungbuk/KR, 3Seoul/KR
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-2497
Methods and materials
This survey was compiled witht the Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act and approved by institutional review boards prospectively; the need for informed consent was waived.
CT dose is routinely estimated by using standard 16- or 32-cm diameter cylinder phantoms representing "average" patients.[4] We collected the data of CTDIvol,
DLP,
X-ray tube current,
scan length,
patient height,
weight,
and age in 14 most common CT protocols from October 2016 to August 2017.
We collected 13,625 CT examinations of 14 protocols from 369 CT systems.
(Figure 1) Data were collected using two kinds of methods; electronic data collection (Figure 2) or direct data collection from CT equipment by digital imaging anf communications in medicin information (DICOM) radiation dose structured report (RDSR) and header information.
14 CT protocols include brain CT without contrast,
intracranial CT angiography,
cervical spine CT,
lumbar spine CT,
neck CT with contrast,
chest CT,
low dose screening chest CT,
abdomen-pelvic CT with contrast,
abdomen 4 phase dynamic CT with contrast,
abdomen-pelvic CT without contrast for urinary tract stone,
coronary artery CT angiography,
coronary artery calcium score CT,
CT aortography,
and pediatric brain CT without contrast according to the group of ages.
Among them,
intracranial CT angiography,
low dose screening chest CT,
CT aortography,
and calcium score CT were surveyed as the DRLs for the first time.
The data were analyzed by using SPSS version V18 (IBM US).
We sought the 25th aand 75th percentiles in the distribution of radiation exposure levels to determine the nationwide patient dose and the distribution status of the dose,
respectively.