Comparison of Radiation Dose in CT Examinations At PIMS with European Commission Reference Doses

Authors

  • Fawad Yasin Radiology Department, PIMS Hospital, Islamabad
  • Anum Rasheed Department of Medicine, POF Hospital, Wah Cantt
  • Muhammad Nauman Malik Radiology Department, PIMS Hospital, Islamabad
  • Farheen Raza Medical Officer, Radiology Department, PIMS Hospital, Islamabad
  • Ramish Riaz Ph.D Fellow (bio Sciences) National Unviersity of Science & Technology, Islamabad
  • Ayesha Isani Majeed Professor of Radiology, PIMS, Islamabad

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48036/apims.v17i3.511

Keywords:

CTDIvol, Computed Tomography, DLP

Abstract

OBJECTIVE - The purpose of this study was to assess the radiation dose levels from common computed tomography (CT) examinations performed in Radiology Department of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), and evaluate these according to diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) proposed by European Commission (EC) guidelines, and thus contributing towards the establishment of local and national DRLs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to explore radiation doses from CT examinations in Pakistan.

STUDY DESIGN - This was a quantitative study conducted at PIMS, Islamabad, spanning a duration of eight weeks. Scan parameters and dose profile data of 1506 adults undergoing examinations of head, neck, chest and abdomen-pelvis regions, comprising of single- and multi-phase, contrast-enhanced and unenhanced studies. Dose indicators utilized by EC guidelines for DRLs include volume CT dose index (CTDIvol) and Dose Length Product (DLP) for single slice and complete examination radiation doses, respectively.

METHOD - Values of CTDIvol, DLP and scan lengths were extracted from the CT operators console. Other control variables included gender, contrast enhancement and phasicity of study. IBM SPSS package was used to obtain descriptive statistics such as mean and quartiles.

RESULTS - DRLs calculated as 75th percentile of CTDIvol, DLP for various anatomical regions are by and far comparable to European DRLs.

CONCLUSION – This study describes institutional diagnostic reference levels for common CT exams in Islamabad and provides benchmark values for future reference. Our DRL values are mostly comparable to European and international DRLs. Similar, albeit large scale, surveys are recommended for establishment of local and national DRLs, eventually contributing towards development of regional DRLs.

KEYWORDS: CTDIvol, DLP, Diagnostic Reference Levels, Computed Tomography, Radiation Monitoring, Scan length

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Published

2021-11-15

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 3 (2021): July-September

Section

Original Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Fawad Yasin, Anum Rasheed, Muhammad Nauman Malik, Farheen Raza, Ramish Riaz, Ayesha Isani Majeed

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.