Abstract
The use of computed tomography (CT) has increased over the past decades and has resulted in a concurrent increase in medical exposure to ionizing radiation. Several recent studies have examined the link between medical radiation and the risk of cancer, especially in children. Results are presented in terms of the volumetric computed tomography dose index (CTDIvol) and dose length product (DLP) for head, chest and abdomen. The 75th percentile of adult CTDIvol for head, chest and abdomen are 85 mGy, 13.34 mGy and 13.29 mGy respectively and the corresponding DLP values 1437.47 mGy·cm, 417.49 and 656.02 mGy·cm. However, the paediatric head based on age group 0 - 1 yr, 1 - 5 yrs, 6 - 10 yrs and 11 - 15 years are 28.18 mGy, 32.12 mGy, 32.13 mGy and 28.20 mGy and corresponding DLP values 399.75 mGy·cm, 514.38 mGy·cm, 578.42 mGy·cm and 487.11 mGy·cm respectively and for paediatric abdomen from 1 - 5 years to 11 - 15 years are 3.98 mGy, 4.26 mGy and 5.92 mGy and the corresponding DLP 99.36 mGy·cm, 160.84 and 235.85 mGy·cm. The finding shows considerably high CTDIvol and DLP values for adult head comparable to the international standard thus optimization is required. Reduction in radiation doses for both adult and paediatric patients involve training of staff and optimize CT protocols.
Highlights
Though computed tomography (CT) consists of scanner that revolves about a fixed point taking different two dimensional (2D) images at different location in different direction at different angles, when these two dimensional images taken at different angles placed on a computer, the resultant image is three dimensional (3D) image that can reveal the presence of injuries and disease for either therapeutic or diagnostic purposes (Via Radiology, 2015)
With the high risk involve in CT examination, pediatrics patients are at highest risk of cancer stimulation as a result of high ionizing radiation while pediatrics are radiosensitive compare to adult patients that have mature body composition and evidence shows that the rate at which death is occurring in pediatric due to cancer is as a result of exposure of head and abdomen to ionizing radiation from the CT in clinical practice of US, where CT examinations are carried out annually for more than six-hundred thousand on pediatrics patients [7]
The tube voltage for all paediatric age group in head were fixed at 120 KV compared to adult patients and the corresponding paeditric 170 mAs which is slightly less compared to adult head as you can see in Table 1 and Table 2
Summary
Evidence shows that in 2010 about 80 million CT examinations were investigated as a result of outstanding imaging selection and high resolution that brings about details anatomical information [1]. This is suitable for the larger head, chest, abdomen/pelvis and other sensitive organs or soft tissue to be investigated. Since CT uses a very high ionizing radiation dose compared to that of x-ray cannot be ignored without measuring the amount of radiation dose received by the patients undergoing CT examination [3]. These cancer risk and dose variation need to be optimized since patients and personnel are at risk to
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