Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2019
Keywords:
Action 4 - Dose management systems, Action 9 - Facilitation of research in advanced topics of radiation protection, Action 12 - Information for and communication with patients, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Radiation physics, CT, Plain radiographic studies, Fluoroscopy, Radiation safety, Technology assessment, Dosimetric comparison, Education and training
Authors:
V. Tsapaki, C. Triantopoulou, S. Triantopoulou, D. Fagrezos, N. Lama, P. Maniatis
DOI:
10.26044/esi2019/ESI-0066
Background/introduction
The new International Basic Safety Standards [1] and the European Directive 59/2013 [2] underline the need for dose monitoring and optimization for all radiological imaging procedures with a special focus on high radiation dose techniques such as CT and interventional radiology (IR) and cardiology (IC) examinations.
However,
continuous dose monitoring can be time consuming,
cumbersome task with patient data limited to radiation dose values specially in older radiological imaging X-ray machines.
Nowadays,
sophisticated software,
that can be either free or commercial,
with friendly interface assist to this task,
resulting in a much easier and quicker way to monitor all data.
The software can retrieve all information that is included in the Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) header of a large variety of medical ionizing and non-ionizing radiation units,
or the data transferred to the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) of the hospital.
As claimed by the dose management software (DMS) manufacturers,
DMS allow the user to supervise,
optimize and maintain full control at all times without extensive statistics and long hours of manual analysis.
As these systems become more and more established,
they could allow large dose registries to be built up and to fulfil legal requirements such as requirements for reporting dose results to authorities for clinical audits,
or to identify unintended overexposures [2].
The role of DMS in dose optimization and in Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) definition is further highlighted in the latest International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) 135 report on Diagnostic reference levels in medical imaging [3].