OA078] The acceptable quality doses (AQDs) in children undergoing CT examinations in Hamad medical corporation hospitals in Qatar

Abstract

Purpose The main purpose of this work is to estimate the acceptable quality doses (AQDs) resulting from various protocols for children undergoing CT examinations in Hamad Medical Corporation hospitals in Qatar. Methods This method has been introduced recently [ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25430807 ] and it takes into account all three important parameters; image quality, dose and patient’s age. About 100 cases of pediatric patients (up to 15 y of age) have been studied for CT examination of Head, Chest and Abdomen. All Images were assessed for image quality according to scoring criteria; 1, 2, 3 and 4 corresponding to bad, not acceptable, acceptable, and higher than necessary quality, respectively. Only images with acceptable quality (score of 3) were selected and grouped into four age groups, 1–5, >5–10 and >10–15 y. The median values for CTDIVol and DLP were determined as the AQD. Results The initial results are shown in the table below. Head Chest Abdomen CTDIvol (mGy) DLP (mGy.cm) CTDIvol (mGy) DLP (mGy.cm) CTDIvol (mGy) DLP (mGy.cm) 17.2 234 0.6 13 2.4 108 >1–5 y 20.0 419 1.5 31 2.8 84 >5–10 y 20.7 513 2.2 61 3 125 10–15 y 21.8 427 3.7 109 6.4 277 CTDIvol and DLP for CT scans of children for images of acceptable quality. Conclusions The concept of AQD allowed orientation of radiologists in image quality assessment and its documentation. Further, integration of image quality scoring with dose resulted in detection of situations with higher-than-necessary image quality and awareness and detection of opportunities for optimization.