The diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) have been established for an efficient administration of the radiation dose and for the optimization of the acquisition technique. Historically the DRLs were developed by imaging study, but not related to the clinical indication of the imaging study. However even in the same anatomic region an allegedly optimized CT dose could not be adequate depending on the clinical indication. As an example, a lung CT study has a different protocol and radiation dose if the indication is a lung cancer,...

Setting Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires (HIBA) is a non-profit healthcare academic tertiary center with 785 beds, of which 200 are dedicated to critical care. The hospital has a busy clinical practice with 3 millions outpatient consultations, 45000 inpatient admissions and 52000 surgeries performed in 41 operating rooms yearly. During 2018, the Imaging Department received 583,455 patients to perform different studies (table 1). Since 1998, the HIBA has run an in-house-developed health information system, which includes clinical and administrative data. It has been recently certified...

As part of the radiology quality and safety program launched at the Hospital Italiano of Buenos Aires, medical physicists measured and optimized clinical DRLs for adults and children with the collaboration of radiologists and CT scanner application specialist. This is an important tool for optimization in the use of CT in both adults and children and a key factor to be analyzed in the monitoring of the dose managing system. A shift in radiology protection culture is to aware the radiological personnel involved in CT...

R. D. García-Mónaco: Head of the Imaging Department, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. D. E. Andisco: medical physicist. Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. S. A. Blanco: medical physicist. Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. M. Ulla: chief quality officer of the Imaging department of Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, coordinating activities of the audit team in the radiology department.

1.- AAPM Report N° 204 – “Size-Specific Dose Estimates (SSDE) in pediatric and Adult Body CT Examinations” – 2011. 2.- Radiation Protection N°185 - “European Guidelines on Diagnostic reference Levels for Paediatric Imaging” – 2018 – ISSN 2315-2826 3.- ICRP Publication 135: Diagnostic Reference Levels in Medical Imaging. - 2017