Abstract
Background: Computed tomography (CT) is vastly applied in X-ray procedures because of its high quality in detecting the anatomical structures of the body. However, it leads to an increase in patient dose, resulting in carcinogenesis. In the head and neck CT, the thyroid is the most important at-risk organ. The aim of this study was to estimate thyroid cancer risk in cervical CT with and without a bismuth shield. Materials and Methods: After obtaining permission from the authors, data related to the thyroid dose of patients undergoing cervical CT in the study by Santos et al (2019) were used, and then thyroid cancer risk was calculated for different ages at exposure in male and female patients using the biological effects of the ionizing radiation (BEIR) VII model. Results: Using bismuth shielding reduced thyroid dose by 37% and 39% in male and female phantoms, respectively. Thyroid cancer estimation demonstrated that the risk was nearly two-fold in females compared to males. Finally, bismuth shielding reduced 40% of cancer risk, and it decreased in both genders by increasing age at exposure. Conclusion: According to our findings, excess relative risk (ERR) up to 0.06% was associated with cervical CT. Although ERR amounts were low, the effect of radiation on thyroid cancer risk should not be neglected. Accordingly, it is suggested that future trials use bismuth shielding to reduce thyroid cancer risk.
Highlights
Medical radiation is considered as a major technique for diagnosis and a part of treating certain diseases
After measuring the mean thyroid dose with and without the bismuth shield, the excess relative risk (ERR)/mGy rates were determined for different ages at exposure
The attained age has no impact on the calculations
Summary
Medical radiation is considered as a major technique for diagnosis and a part of treating certain diseases. Computed tomography (CT) is a widespread alternative among X-ray applications in medical imaging due to its high quality in detecting the anatomical structures of the body. It increases the dose of radiation for the patients, which can be due to the scattered radiation, beam divergence, and the required efficiency of collimators and filtration. Computed tomography (CT) is vastly applied in X-ray procedures because of its high quality in detecting the anatomical structures of the body It leads to an increase in patient dose, resulting in carcinogenesis. The aim of this study was to estimate thyroid cancer risk in cervical CT with and without a bismuth shield.
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