Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2017
Keywords:
Diagnostic procedure, CT, Lung, Action 2 - Clinical diagnostic reference levels (DRLs), Action 3 - Optimisation, diagnostic reference levels, image quality, Dosimetric comparison
Authors:
K. Katsari, L. Oktabcova, A. Papachristodoulou, S. Puggina, G. Volford, A. Kaczor, V. Herédia, A. Cojocaru, X. Boulanger, R. Gökcan, B. Cavli, R. Illing
DOI:
10.1594/esi2017/ESI-0005
Background/Introduction
Technological developments in Computed Tomography (CT) in the last two decades have resulted in a continuing increase of the number of examinations performed.
The contribution to the annual cumulative effective dose by CT examinations has also increased substantially,
raising concerns about the associated ionizing radiation risk[1].
International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation require that a radiologic examination be performed only in the case of a justifiable clinical indication and,
in that case,
that the patient’s radiation exposure be limited to the amount required to meet the specific clinical objective[2].
The image quality at CT often exceeds the level required for a confident diagnosis and thus patient doses are higher than necessary.
Guidelines to optimize the protection of patients during CT procedures should be in place in every department[3].
Chest CT is a common examination performed to evaluate parenchyma,
mediastinum,
airways and mediastina vessels.
A platform to unify and optimize the practice of CT has been introduced across an international group of Radiology Departments.
A dose reference level (DRL) was introduced,
and an audit undertaken to assess the performance of the ‘general CT chest’ protocol compared to the reference standard[4,
5].