Comparison of methods for calculating effective doses for children during CT examinations of the chest organs

Computed tomography is associated with high patient doses. CT is actively used for pediatric, however, currently there is no reliable data on the pediatric patient doses in the Russian Federation. The current study presents the data on the anthropometric characteristics of 5, 10 and 15-year-old pediatric patients, as well as the results of a comparative assessment of the effective doses of these patients during CT-examinations of chest, considering their anthropometric data. The effective doses were calculated using three methods: based on the actual guidelines (MU 2.6.1.3584-19) using the age specific conversion coefficients; using the conversion coefficients considered patient body mass and effective diameter; using a specialized software NCICT 3.0. The difference between effective doses according to actual guidelines and considering patient body mass and effective diameter was about 7.1 % (max-65 %). High deviations were observed in patients with abnormally large or abnormally low body mass. Effective doses calculated using NCICT 3.0 were higher compared to doses calculated according to actual guidelines on average by 18 % (max — 53 %). Such differences are explained by the fact that in MU 2.6.1.3584-19 conversion coefficients are presented for the most common CT-scan parameters of protocols, and in NCICT 3.0 the calculation considers individual scan parameters for each patient. The difference between effective doses according to NCICT 3.0 and considering patient body mass and effective diameter was about 32 % (max-70 %). This difference can be explained by the differences in the anthropometric data of some patients, and by the use of different types of phantoms: a stylized phantom (Golikov et al) and a voxel phantom in NCICT 3.0.

Evaluation of Electron Specific Absorbed Fractions in Organs of Digimouse Voxel Phantom Using Monte Carlo Simulation Code FLUKA

Background: For preclinical evaluations of radiopharmaceuticals, most studies are carried out on mice. Values of electron specific absorbed fractions (SAF) have had vital role in the assessment of absorbed dose. In past studies, electron specific absorbed fractions were given for limited source target pairs using older reports of human organ compositions.Objective: Electron specific absorbed fraction values for monoenergetic electrons of energies 15, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 4000 keV were evaluated for the Digimouse voxel phantom incorporated in Monte Carlo code FLUKA. The organ sources considered in this study were lungs, skeleton, heart, bladder, testis, stomach, spleen, pancreas, liver, kidney, adrenal, eye and brain. The considered target organs were lungs, skeleton, heart, bladder, testis, stomach, spleen, pancreas, liver, kidney, adrenal and brain. Eye and brain were considered as target organs only for eye and brain as source organs. From the latest report (International Commission on Radiological Protection ICRP) publication number 110, organ compositions and densities were adopted.Results: The electron specific absorbed fraction values for self-irradiation decreases with increasing electron energy. The electron specific absorbed fraction values for cross-irradiation are also found to be dependent on the electron energy and the geometries of source and target. Organ masses and electron specific absorbed fraction values are presented in tabular form. Conclusion: The results of this study will be useful in evaluating the absorbed dose to various organs of mice similar in size to the present study.