Longitudinal study of radiation exposure in computed tomography with an in-house developed dose monitoring system

Bernhard Renger, Ernst J. Rummeny, Peter B. Noël

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

During the last decades, the reduction of radiation exposure especially in diagnostic computed tomography is one of the most explored topics. In the same time, it seems challenging to quantify the long-term clinical dose reduction with regard to new hardware as well as software solutions. To overcome this challenge, we developed a Dose Monitoring System (DMS), which collects information from PACS, RIS, MPPS and structured reports. The integration of all sources overcomes the weaknesses of single systems. To gather all possible information, we integrated an optical character recognition system to extract, for example, information from the CT-dose-report. All collected data are transferred to a database for further evaluation, e.g., for calculations of effective as well as organ doses. The DMS provides a single database for tracking all essential study and patient specific information across different modality as well as different vendors. As an initial study, we longitudinally investigated the dose reduction in CT examination when employing a noise-suppressing reconstruction algorithm. For this examination type a significant long-term reduction in radiation exposure is reported, when comparing to a CT-system with standard reconstruction. In summary our DMS tool not only enables us to track radiation exposure on daily bases but further enables to analyses the long term effect of new dose saving strategies. In the future the statistical analyses of all retrospective data, which are available in a modern imaging department, will provide a unique overview of advances in reduction of radiation exposure.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMedical Imaging 2013
Subtitle of host publicationPhysics of Medical Imaging
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
EventMedical Imaging 2013: Physics of Medical Imaging - Lake Buena Vista, FL, United States
Duration: 11 Feb 201314 Feb 2013

Publication series

NameProgress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE
Volume8668
ISSN (Print)1605-7422

Conference

ConferenceMedical Imaging 2013: Physics of Medical Imaging
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLake Buena Vista, FL
Period11/02/1314/02/13

Keywords

  • CT
  • Monitoring
  • Radiation dose

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