Patient doses in paediatric CT: feasibility of setting diagnostic reference levels

Abstract

Despite the fact that doses to paediatric patients from computed tomography (CT) examinations are of special concern, only few data or studies for setting of paediatric diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) have been published. In this study, doses to children were estimated from chest and head CT, in order to study the feasibility of DRLs for these examinations. It is shown that for the DRLs, patient dose data from different CT scanners should be collected in age or weight groups, possibly for different indications. For practical reasons, the DRLs for paediatric chest CT should be given as a continuous DRL curve as a function of patient weight. For paediatric head CT, DRLs for a few age groups could be given. The users of the DRLs should be aware of the calibration phantom applied in the console calibration for different paediatric scanning protocols. The feasibility of DRLs should be re-evaluated every 2-3 y.