Cook Tessa S, Hilton Susan, Papanicolaou Nicholas
Department of Radiology, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Spruce Street, 1 Silverstein, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA,
Abdom Imaging. 2013 Dec;38(6):1190-6. doi: 10.1007/s00261-013-0028-2.
Reported instances of patients' overexposure to imaging-related radiation have spurred the radiology and medical physics communities to identify and develop methods for decreasing the amount of radiation used to achieve diagnostic-quality images. These initiatives include examining and optimizing conventional CT scanning parameters, introducing innovative scan protocols, and incorporating novel dose reduction technologies. The greatest challenge to effective dose reduction in the abdomen and pelvis remains patient size. Here, we review the state of the art in abdominopelvic CT in both adult and pediatric patients and describe some of our own efforts in dose reduction for these types of examinations.
