SU‐D‐209‐06: Study On the Dose Conversion Coefficients in Pediatric Radiography with the Development of Children Voxel Phantoms

Abstract

Purpose: Conversion coefficients of organ dose normalized to entrance skin dose (ESD) are widely used to evaluate the organ doses directly using ESD without time‐consuming dose measurement, this work aims to investigate the dose conversion coefficients in pediatric chest and abdomen radiography with the development of 5 years and 10 years old children voxel phantoms. Methods: After segmentation of organs and tissues from CT slice images of ATOM tissue‐equivalent phantoms, a 5‐year‐old and a 10‐year‐old children computational voxel phantoms were developed for Monte Carlo simulation. The organ doses and the entrance skin dose for pediatric chest postero‐anterior projection and abdominal antero‐posterior projection were simulated at the same time, and then the organ dose conversion coefficients were calculated.To verify the simulated results, dose measurement was carried out with ATOM tissue‐equivalent phantoms for 5 year chest radiography. Results: Simulated results and experimental results matched very well with each other, the result differences of all the organs covered in radiation field were below 16% for 5‐year‐old child in chest projection. I showed that the conversion coefficients of organs covered in the radiation field were much larger than organs out of the field for all the study cases, for example, the conversion coefficients of stomach, liver intestines, and pancreas are larger for abdomen radiography while conversion coefficients of lungs are larger for chest radiography. Conclusion: The voxel children phantoms were helpful to evaluate the radiation doses more accurately and efficiently. Radiation field was the essential factor that affects the organ dose, use reasonably small field should be encouraged for radiation protection. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(11475047)