Does clinical indication play a role in CT radiation dose in pediatric patients?

Abstract

Introduction There are many types of medical imaging procedures that are applied on children. Imaging has to take into account the dynamics of a growing body, from pre-term infants to large adolescents. CT imaging, currently the gold standard in the detection of certain pathologies, imparts the highest radiation dose to children. Purpose The purpose of the study was to identify the main pathologies for which CT is applied and related radiation doses as reported in the literature in order to facilitate justification and CT optimization. Materials and methods A critical analysis of a literature review was performed. Different search engines were used such as PubMed, Google Scholar and Science Direct. Various terms and keywords were used to locate pertinent articles such as Pediatric, Computed tomography, CTDI, DLP, Radiation Dose, Organ dose, Effective dose. Results The results showed that the main pathologies for which CT is applied are: Crohn’s disease, hydrocephalus, cystic fibrosis and pediatric malignancies - mainly lymphoma. The related radiation dose data are extremely scarce and are in the range of 1–25 mSv, 0.2–15.3 mSv, 0.14–6.2 mSv, and 5–528 mSv, respectively. The radiation doses reported are high especially in pediatric oncology. Conclusion Pediatric patients are exposed to high levels of radiation during CT imaging. Literature is lacking reporting of dose in Pediatric CT imaging. More studies need to be realized for the determination of radiation dose in those patients. Special protocols need to be recommended in order to reduce the exposure of children in radiation. Disclosure No Disclosure. There are many types of medical imaging procedures that are applied on children. Imaging has to take into account the dynamics of a growing body, from pre-term infants to large adolescents. CT imaging, currently the gold standard in the detection of certain pathologies, imparts the highest radiation dose to children. The purpose of the study was to identify the main pathologies for which CT is applied and related radiation doses as reported in the literature in order to facilitate justification and CT optimization. A critical analysis of a literature review was performed. Different search engines were used such as PubMed, Google Scholar and Science Direct. Various terms and keywords were used to locate pertinent articles such as Pediatric, Computed tomography, CTDI, DLP, Radiation Dose, Organ dose, Effective dose. The results showed that the main pathologies for which CT is applied are: Crohn’s disease, hydrocephalus, cystic fibrosis and pediatric malignancies - mainly lymphoma. The related radiation dose data are extremely scarce and are in the range of 1–25 mSv, 0.2–15.3 mSv, 0.14–6.2 mSv, and 5–528 mSv, respectively. The radiation doses reported are high especially in pediatric oncology. Pediatric patients are exposed to high levels of radiation during CT imaging. Literature is lacking reporting of dose in Pediatric CT imaging. More studies need to be realized for the determination of radiation dose in those patients. Special protocols need to be recommended in order to reduce the exposure of children in radiation.