Background/introduction
There are ongoing efforts worldwide to develop Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) and keep them updated [1-3]. One persistent challenge of this effort is to be able to gather accurate data with minimal burden of the providers. Automated data submission is often less burdensome than manual data collection, and could potentially be more accurate as it is not subject to human error associated with data entry. However, not all facilities and geographic regions have the right technology infrastructure to deliver the data in this format, and...
Description of activity and work performed
We compared median (Achievable Dose) and 75th percentile (Diagnostic Reference Level) for both CTDIvol and DLP for low dose CT chest screening studies from the two data sources, DIR and LCSR. In addition to comparing data for the whole year 2018, we considered two alternative sampling methods for the LCSR data that represent reduced burden of manually collecting data – data for one month only (June 2018), and data for a random 10% of records from the year.
The analysis included 3190 LCSR facilities with...
Conclusion and recommendations
The distributions of dose indices are remarkably similar across different data collection methods, suggesting that for properly specified exams, non-DICOM (potentially manual) data capture is as reliable as DICOM capture for estimating DRLs.
The analysis presented here is in early stages. Further refinements are necessary to examine outliers, explore variations in sub-populations, and compare the results by patient size. The DIR collects patient size in the form of localizer images used to calculate effective diameter; the LCSR collects patient height and weight which supports calculation...
Personal/organisational information
M. B. Chatfield; Reston/US - nothing to disclose D. Golden; Reston/US - nothing to disclose M. Simanowith; Reston/US - nothing to disclose D. Gress; Reston/US - nothing to disclose J. Burleson; Reston/US - nothing to disclose
References
Kanal KM, Butler PF, Sengupta D, Bhargavan-Chatfield M, Coombs LP, Morin RL. U.S. Diagnostic Reference Levels and Achievable Doses for 10 Adult CT Examinations. Radiology. 2017 Jul;284(1):120-133. doi: 10.1148/radiol.2017161911. Epub 2017 Feb 21. PubMed PMID: 28221093.
European Commission (EC). Radiation Protection No. 180 – Diagnostic reference levels in thirty-six European countries (Part 2/2). EC website. https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/RP180%20part2.pdf. Published 2014. Accessed January 12, 2020.
ESR EuroSafe Imaging. EUCLID – European Study on Clinical Diagnostic Reference Levels for X-ray Medical Imaging, http://www.eurosafeimaging.org/euclid. Accessed January 12, 2020.
ACR National...