Automated Measurement of Effective Radiation Dose by F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Calculating the radiation dose from CT in F-PET/CT examinations poses a significant challenge. The objective of this study is to develop a deep learning-based automated program that standardizes the measurement of radiation doses.

METHODS

The torso CT was segmented into six distinct regions using TotalSegmentator. An automated program was employed to extract the necessary information and calculate the effective dose (ED) of PET/CT. The accuracy of our automated program was verified by comparing the EDs calculated by the program with those determined by a nuclear medicine physician (n = 30). Additionally, we compared the EDs obtained from an older PET/CT scanner with those from a newer PET/CT scanner (n = 42).

RESULTS

The CT ED calculated by the automated program was not significantly different from that calculated by the nuclear medicine physician (3.67 ± 0.61 mSv and 3.62 ± 0.60 mSv, respectively, = 0.7623). Similarly, the total ED showed no significant difference between the two calculation methods (8.10 ± 1.40 mSv and 8.05 ± 1.39 mSv, respectively, = 0.8957). A very strong correlation was observed in both the CT ED and total ED between the two measurements (r = 0.9981 and 0.9996, respectively). The automated program showed excellent repeatability and reproducibility. When comparing the older and newer PET/CT scanners, the PET ED was significantly lower in the newer scanner than in the older scanner (4.39 ± 0.91 mSv and 6.00 ± 1.17 mSv, respectively, < 0.0001). Consequently, the total ED was significantly lower in the newer scanner than in the older scanner (8.22 ± 1.53 mSv and 9.65 ± 1.34 mSv, respectively, < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

We successfully developed an automated program for calculating the ED of torso F-PET/CT. By integrating a deep learning model, the program effectively eliminated inter-operator variability.