In the era of extended use of medical imaging, the risks and especially the cancer risks associated with radiation from medical exposure have received increased attention in the medical literature and in the discussions among experts. Although effective dose as a risk indicator was not initially intended for individual patients [ICRP 103, 2007], there is the need to expand this guidance with consideration of the uncertainties that accompany low levels of exposure. There has been growing support for the idea of tracking cumulative dose estimates...

As indicated by recent publications, the goal of tracking patient history is to monitor cumulative effective doses (CED) above 100 mSv, as this is a threshold considered for high-risk cases [Brambilla et al, 2019]. In the current study, a period of one year was analysed for 23 Belgian hospitals. All data passed through the same dose management system (DMS) (DOSE, Qaelum NV, Belgium), allowing for standardized effective dose calculations using the same conversion factors for every included examination [Figure 1]. The percentage of patients that...

In total, analysis of almost 900k unique patients was performed. The number of CED outliers was found to be 1223, which is 0.14% of the total number of patients. The gender distribution of the CED outliers was 67% males and 33% females (Figure 2). The median CED of the outliers was 125mSv, with an interquartile range (IQR) of 110 - 151mSv. In Figure 3,thedose histogram indicates the CED distribution of the outliers. Regarding the number of examinations, the CED outliers received on average 6.2 examinations...

Triggered by recent investigations of the IAEA, it is important to monitor not only individual examinations but also cumulative doses from multiple examinations throughout patients’ history. As reported in the literature, the percentage of patient cases with CED ≥ 100mSv can be relatively high. It is important to further investigate and evaluate if these high-dose cases are the outcome of a severe disease’s follow-up protocol, for example Crohn’s disease [Desmond et al, 2019], or the result of a complex individual procedure. In this study, the...

N. Fitousi; Leuven/BE - Employee at Qaelum NV H. Bosmans; Leuven/BE - Board Member at Qaelum NV - Founder at Qaelum NV S. Dewilde; Leuven/BE - Employee at Qaelum NV J. Jacobs; Leuven/BE - CEO at Qaelum NV - Founder at Qaelum NV X.-Q. Zhang; Leuven/BE - Employee at Qaelum NV A. Dedulle; Leuven/BE - Employee at Qaelum NV and Research/Grant Support at VLAIO (HBC.2016.0233)

ICRP, 2007. The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection. ICRP Publication 103. Rehani, M.M., Yang, K., Melick, E.R., Heil, J., Salat, D., Sensakovic, W.F., Liu, B.. Eur Radiol (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-019-06523-y Fitousi N. Patient dose monitoring systems: A new way of managing patient dose and quality in the radiology department. Phys Med. 2017 Dec;44 212-221. doi:10.1016/j.ejmp.2017.06.013. PMID: 28662850. Brambilla, M., Vassileva, J., Kuchcinska, A., Rehani, M.M. Multinational data on cumulative radiation exposure of patients from recurrent radiological procedures: call for action. Eur Radiol...