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TH‐C‐201B‐09: Calculating Cumulative CT Dose in the Trauma Patient Population
Author(s) -
Scott A,
Wu X,
Pike P,
Singh S,
Malcolm I,
Schemmel D
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.3469526
Subject(s) - medicine , nuclear medicine , incidence (geometry) , population , trauma center , effective dose (radiation) , dosimetry , radiation dose , computed tomography , radiology , retrospective cohort study , surgery , physics , environmental health , optics
Purpose : Recent concerns about lifetime radiation dose from computed tomography (CT) exams has prompted a review of the CT dose delivered at our hospital a Level I trauma center. A particular patient population of concern is trauma patients who routinely receive multiple CT exams during their stay. We sampled the trauma patient population and tracked their CT dose during the lengths of their stays to calculate their lifetime attributable risk of cancer incidence (LARi) and mortality (LARm) based on total CT dose sex and age. Methods and Materials : We selected as our population sample 100 patients chosen alphabetically by last name who were admitted under a trauma code in the month of November 2008. We collected information on the CTDI value the scan length and the anatomy scanned from the DICOM headers of all CT scans made during each patient's stay to calculate each patient's individual effective dose and cancer risk estimates (LARi and LARm using the BEIR VII data). Results : The mean effective dose (in mSv) for male and female trauma patients was 41.9 and 34.3 respectively and the maximum dose for any patient was 113.8 mSv. The mean LARm for males and females was 0.17% and 0.16% respectively. the LARm for males and females was 0.17% and 0.16% respectively. Conclusion : Based on our dose tracking information we have a better understanding of the risks of cancer incidence and mortality for our trauma patients due to our diagnostic tools which must be weighed against the risks of morbidity and mortality from the trauma incident itself. Our institution has adopted dose recording and dose tracking as an intrinisic part of each CT exam and as part of each patient's history which will allow a more comprehensive examination of the radiation dose to or patient population.