Establishment of local diagnostic reference levels for typical radiography examinations in the west region of Croatia

Abstract

Ma jor ity of health in sti tu tions in Croatia do not have med i cal phys i cists in di ag nos tic ra di ology. Re gard ing this, in the west re gion of Croatia col lab o ra tion be tween pub lic health in sti tution and Uni ver sity Hos pi tal Rijeka was ini ti ated in 2015. Qual ity As sur ance pro gram was im ple mented in these pub lic health in sti tu tions dur ing 2015 and 2016 and the next step was to as sess pa tient doses for the most fre quent X-ray ex am i nations. This in cluded five pub lic health in sti tu tions: 1 uni ver sity hos pi tal, 1 gen eral hos pi tal, 1 spe cial hos pi tal, 2 pub lic health in sti tu tions with 13 fa cil i ties. The aim of this study was to carry out as sess ment of pa tient doses and to es tab lish lo cal di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els of entrance sur face air kerma for ev ery in sti tu tion for six most fre quent X-ray ex am i na tions. Also, lo cal di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els for the whole west re gion of Croatia were es tab lished and com pared with the na tional di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els and lat est pub lished data. Me dian entrance sur face air kerma val ues for tho rax PA, tho rax LAT, cer vi cal spine AP, tho racic spine AP, lum bar spine AP, pel vis AP and si nuses are 0.14 mGy, 0.50 mGy, 0.52 mGy, 1.50 mGy, 2.52 mGy, 2.03 mGy, and 1.03 mGy, re spec tively. Di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els pro posed for our re gion were com pa ra ble with other stud ies.

Computed tomography radiation doses for common computed tomography examinations: a nationwide dose survey in United Arab Emirates

“…These organizations encourage individual countries to establish their local DRLs and to conduct continuous monitoring for the DRL values. ICRP recommended that each country surveys the medical imaging practice to determine national DRLs to be used as indicators, provide guidance for dose optimization, and ensure justification of appropriate dose for a given clinical indication [4,5].…”

Advanced Computational Methods for Radiation Dose Optimization in CT

“…Discrepancies between optimized protocol DRLs and published European data in Table 11 underscore the importance of tailored dose-reduction strategies [33]. Comparisons with existing studies reveal variations in radiation exposure levels for different anatomical regions, emphasizing the need for context-specific optimization [21,28]. Cancer patients, undergoing numerous CT imaging procedures, face heightened radiation exposure risks, underscoring the imperative for dose-reduction techniques.…”

“…DRLs were calculated for head, neck, and pelvic cancer radiotherapy CT using present and optimized protocols compared with global studies. Before the patient scans, Catphan 503 phantom scans were used to evaluate the CT system performance across imaging parameters, ensuring optimal protocol usage for the RT CT scans [28,29].…”

Semi-automatic positioning of the protective screen based on integration with C-arm X-ray device

“…Figures 2 and 3 present examples of indications and relevant solutions of screen management, exstracted from the movie [41]. The application of the solution includes that in the structural report on the radiation dose will be regularly incorporated the assessment of cumulative radiation exposure of occupationally exposed persons in DICOM RDSR format [1,[54][55][56][57][58][59], precisely on the basis of the resolved integration of X-ray device and protective screen, and relevant dosimetric data (based on calculations, whose primary goal is to estimate the reference positioning of the screen) that can be obtained in this way.…”