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
Conclusion and Recommendations
94% of examinations were performed with a total number of irradiations complying with the standard and 94% did not receive high dose level alerts (Image 1).
From the 5% of justified high dose level alerts,
50% was attributed to patients being overweight with BMI from 25 and above (Image 2).
Median CTDIvol ranged from 2.18mGy to 11.79mGy (Image 3) and median DLP ranged from 77.50 mGy.cm to 467.20 mGy.cm (Image 4).
52% of the protocols used were within the DRL (Image 1).
The analysis of the CT manufacture date in terms of DLP is inconclusive (Image 5).
The impact of iterative reconstruction algorithms to DLP did not result in dose reduction (Image 6).
The models and vendors that gave the highest and lowest doses respectively for these examinations were identified (Image 7).
There was a very wide variation in patients’ radiation exposure for the same examination and indication between departments and countries.
The evolution of technology and the use of iterative reconstruction algorithms did not present an improvement on the patients’ exposure; therefore optimization of the imaging protocol parameters by qualified experts in correlation to the clinically appropriate image quality is crucial.