Keywords:
Quality assurance, Education and training, Education, Dosimetry, Digital radiography, CT, Radiographers, Lung
Authors:
T. Oikawa, T. Arai, K. Mochigi, M. Shinozaki, Y. Yajima; Tokyo/JP
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-0675
Aims and objectives
Japan is the only country in the world where atomic bombs were dropped in 1945.
Furthermore,
during the Tohoku Region Pacific Offshore Earthquake,
the environmental pollution brought by the radioactive plume released in TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident is observed in 2011.
This resulted in the citizens’ increasing interest on radiation exposure,
and several issues remaining on the risk communication with patients during an examination using medical equipment with radiation,
which requires dose optimization and dose management with dose reports.
For example,
in X-ray photography (Xp) and computed tomography (CT) examination,
the dose is controlled for each patient using the Automatic Exposure Control (AEC) system.
In addition,
the dose evaluation index is defined for each examination to optimize the dose and image quality.
In the CT examination,
the CT Dose Index (CTDI) was defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2002.1 In Xp,
Exposure Index and Deviation Index were defined in 2008.2 In 2011,
the effectiveness of Size Specific Dose Estimation (SSDE),
which is a dose index of CT considering patient body size,
was reported by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).3 The dose parameters and index are recorded as Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) information,
which can be obtained arbitrarily.
In the recent years,
a management support system that automatically records and analyzes dose information has also been developed.
In this study,
the effectiveness of exploratory collection/analysis of DICOM information was investigated to estimatethe dose required for imaging based on the patient’s body size before the examination.