Department of Medical Physics, ASST Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda, Piazza Ospedale Maggiore, 3, 20162, Milan, Italy.
Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, via La Masa, 34, 20156, Milan, Italy.
Eur Radiol Exp. 2020 Feb 14;4(1):14. doi: 10.1186/s41747-019-0130-5.
Radiation dose in computed tomography (CT) has become a topic of high interest due to the increasing numbers of CT examinations performed worldwide. Hence, dose tracking and organ dose calculation software are increasingly used. We evaluated the organ dose variability associated with the use of different software applications or calculation methods.
We tested four commercial software applications on CT protocols actually in use in our hospital: CT-Expo, NCICT, NCICTX, and Virtual Dose. We compared dose coefficients, estimated organ doses and effective doses obtained by the four software applications by varying exposure parameters. Our results were also compared with estimates reported by the software authors.
All four software applications showed dependence on tube voltage and volume CT dose index, while only CT-Expo was also dependent on other exposure parameters, in particular scanner model and pitch caused a variability till 50%. We found a disagreement between our results and those reported by the software authors (up to 600%), mainly due to a different extent of examined body regions. The relative range of the comparison of the four software applications was within 35% for most organs inside the scan region, but increased over the 100% for organs partially irradiated and outside the scan region. For effective doses, this variability was less evident (ranging from 9 to 36%).
The two main sources of organ dose variability were the software application used and the scan region set. Dose estimate must be related to the process used for its calculation.
由于全球 CT 检查数量的增加，计算机断层扫描（CT）中的辐射剂量已成为人们关注的焦点。因此，剂量跟踪和器官剂量计算软件的使用也越来越多。我们评估了使用不同软件应用程序或计算方法相关的器官剂量变化。
我们在医院实际使用的 CT 方案上测试了四个商业软件应用程序：CT-Expo、NCICT、NCICTX 和 Virtual Dose。我们通过改变曝光参数比较了四个软件应用程序的剂量系数、估计的器官剂量和有效剂量。我们的结果还与软件作者报告的估计值进行了比较。
所有四个软件应用程序都显示出对管电压和容积 CT 剂量指数的依赖性，而只有 CT-Expo 还依赖于其他曝光参数，特别是扫描仪型号和螺距会导致 50%的变化。我们发现我们的结果与软件作者报告的结果（高达 600%）之间存在差异，主要是由于检查的身体区域不同。四个软件应用程序之间的比较相对范围在扫描区域内的大多数器官中为 35%左右，但对于部分照射的器官和扫描区域外的器官，这一范围增加到 100%以上。对于有效剂量，这种变化不太明显（范围从 9%到 36%）。
器官剂量变化的两个主要来源是使用的软件应用程序和扫描区域。剂量估计必须与其计算过程相关联。
