• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.65-70
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• 2012

Purpose : The aim of this study was to compare the effective dose for imaging of mandible between multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) and cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). An MDCT with low dose technique was also compared with them. Materials and Methods : Thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) chips were placed at 25 organ sites of an anthropomorphic phantom. The mandible of the phantom was exposed using 2 different types of MDCT units (Somatom Sensation 10 for standard-dose MDCT, Somatom Emotion 6 for low-dose MDCT) and 3 different CBCT units (AZ3000CT, Implagraphy, and Kavo 3D eXaM). The radiation absorbed dose was measured and the effective dose was calculated according to the ICRP 2007 report. Results : The effective dose was the highest for Somatom Sensation 10 (425.84 ${\mu}Sv$), followed by AZ3000CT (332.4 ${\mu}Sv$), Somatom Emotion 6 (199.38 ${\mu}Sv$), and 3D eXaM (111.6 ${\mu}Sv$); it was the lowest for Implagraphy (83.09 ${\mu}Sv$). The CBCT showed significant variation in dose level with different device. Conclusion : The effective doses of MDCTs were not significantly different from those of CBCTs for imaging of mandible. The effective dose of MDCT could be markedly decreased by using the low-dose technique.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.281-290
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• 2012

The difference of radiation dose of MDCT due to different protocols between hospitals was analyzed by CTDI, DLP, the number of Slice and the number of DLP/Slice in 30 cases of the head, the abdomen and the chest that have 10 cases each from MDCT examination of the department of diagnostic imaging of three general hospitals in Gyeongsangbuk-do. The difference of image quality, CTDI, DLP, radiation dose in the eye and radiation dose in thyroid was analyzed after both helical scan and normal scan for head CT were performed because a protocol of head CT is relatively simple and head CT is the most frequent case. Head CT was significantly higher in two-thirds of hospitals compared to A hospital that does not exceed a CTDI diagnostic reference level (IAEA 50mGy, Korea 60mGy) (p<0.001). DLP was higher in one-third of hospitals than a diagnostic reference level of IAEA 1,050mGy.cm and Korea 1,000mGy.cm and two-thirds exceeded the recommendation of Korea and those were significantly higher than A hospital that does not exceed a diagnostic reference level (p<0.001). Abdomen CT showed 119mGy that was higher than a diagnostic reference level of IAEA 25mGy and Korea 20mGy in one-third. DLP in all hospitals was higher that Korea recommendation of 700mGy.cm. Among target hospitals, C hospital showed high radiation dose in all tests because MPR and 3D were of great importance due to low pitch and high Tube Curren. To analyze the difference of radiation dose by scan methods, normal scan and helical scan for head CT of the same patient were performed. In the result, CTDI and DLP of helical CT were higher 63.4% and 93.7% than normal scan (p<0.05, p<0.01). However, normal scan of radiation dose in thyroid was higher 87.26% (p<0.01). Beam of helical CT looked like a bell in the deep part and the marginal part so thyroid was exposed with low radiation dose deviated from central beam. In addition, helical scan used Gantry angle perpendicularly and normal scan used it parallel to the orbitomeatal line. Therefore, radiation dose in thyroid decreased in helical scan. However, a protocol in this study showed higher radiation dose than diagnostic reference level of KFDA. To obey the recommendation of KFDA, low Tube Curren and high pitch were demanded. In this study, the difference of image quality between normal scan and helical scan was not significant. Therefore, a standardized protocol of normal scan was generally used and protective gear for thyroid was needed except a special case. We studied a part of CT cases in the local area. Therefore, the result could not represent the entire cases. However, we confirmed that patient's radiation dose in some cases exceeded the recommendation and the deviation between hospitals was observed. To improve this issue, doctors of diagnostic imaging or technologists of radiology should perform CT by the optimized protocol to decrease a level of CT radiation and also reveal radiation dose for the right to know of patients. However, they had little understanding of the situation. Therefore, the effort of relevant agencies with education program for CT radiation dose, release of radiation dose from CT examination and addition of radiation dose control and open CT contents into evaluation for hospital services and certification, and also the effort of health professionals with the best protocol to realize optimized CT examination.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.231-236
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• 2012

This study derived measures to reduce exposure doses by identifying factors which affect the external radiation dose rate of patients treated with radiopharmaceuticals for PET-CT tests. The external radiation dose rates were measured on three parts of head, thorax and abdomen at a distance of 50cm from the surface of 60 PET-CT patients. It showed there are changes in factors affecting the external radiation dose rate over time after the administration of F-18 FDG. The external radiation dose rate was lower in the patients with more water intake than those with less water intake before the injection of radiopharmaceuticals at all three points: right after the injection of radiopharmaceuticals (average 4.17 mins), after the pre-PEET-CT urination step (average 77.47 mins), and right after the PET-CT test (average 114.15 mins). The study also found there is a need to increase the amount of water intake before the injection of radiopharmaceuticals in order to maintain a low external radiation dose rate in patients. This strategy is only possible under the assumption that the quality of the video has not changed after conducting this study on the relations between the image and quality. This study also found a need to use radiopharmaceuticals with the minimum amount needed for each patient because F-FDG doses affects the external radiation dose rate at the point right after the injection of radiopharmaceuticals. Urination frequency was the most significant factor to affect the external radiation dose rates at the point right after the PET-CT test and the point after the pre-PET-CT urination step. There is a need to realize the strategy to increase the urination frequency of patients to maintain the external radiation dose rate low (average 77.47 mins) before and after the injection of radiopharmaceuticals. In addition, at this point, there is a need to take advantage of personal strategies because the external radiation dose rate is lower if the fasting time is shorter, the contrast medium is used, and the amount of water intake is increased after the administration of radiopharmaceuticals. Finally this study found the need to be able to generalize these findings through an in-depth research on the factors affecting the external radiation dose rate, which includes radiopharmaceutical dose, urination frequency, the amount of water intake, fasting time and the use of contrast medium.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.151-159
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• 2014

Computed tomography (CT) is one of the most widely used medical imaging modality. However, substantial x-ray dose exposed to the human subject during the CT scan is a great concern. Region-of-interest (ROI) CT is considered to be a possible solution for its potential to reduce the x-ray dose to the human subject. In most of ROI-CT scans, the ROI is set to a circular shape whose diameter is often considerably smaller than the full field-of-view (FOV). However, an arbitrarily shaped ROI is very desirable to reduce the x-ray dose more than the circularly shaped ROI can do. We propose a new method to make a non-circular convex-shaped ROI along with the image reconstruction method. To make a ROI with an arbitrary convex shape, dynamic collimations are necessary to minimize the x-ray dose at each angle of view. In addition to the dynamic collimation, we get the ROI projection data with slightly lower sampling rate in the view direction to further reduce the x-ray dose. We reconstruct images from the ROI projection data in the compressed sensing (CS) framework assisted by the exterior projection data acquired from the pilot scan to set the ROI. To validate the proposed method, we used the experimental micro-CT projection data after truncating them to simulate the dynamic collimation. The reconstructed ROI images showed little errors as compared to the images reconstructed from the full-FOV scan data as well as little artifacts inside the ROI. We expect the proposed method can significantly reduce the x-ray dose in CT scans if the dynamic collimation is realized in real CT machines.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.351-357
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• 2011

The $^{18}F$-FDG is one of the widely used isotopes for PET/CT scans. Dose amount injected to the patient depends on the characteristics of PET/CT systems. Obviously, the technologists who contact with patients would be exposed as well. In this study, we evaluated the exposed dose of the technologist who works on the PET/CT scanner. The exposed dose were measured every month with the TLDs from 6 technologists. Each technologist is shift-worker who manages 3 different PET/CT systems(Scanner 1(S1): 0.15 mCi/kg, Scanner 2(S2): 0.17 mCi/kg, Scanner 3(S3): 0.12 mCi/kg). The average exposed doses of technologists for each PET/CT system were measured as 0.76 mSv for S1, 0.93 mSv for S2 and 0.47 mSv for S3. The maximum dose was 1.12 mSv and minimum was 0.42 mSv. The results showed that there was a correlation between exposed dose and PET/CT system(p<0.005). Less injected dose for patient occurs less exposed dose for technologist. Various studies for the low dose PET/CT system are required for not only the patient but also the technologist.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.160-166
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• 2019

This study examined the clinical use of two newly installed computed tomography (CT) simulators in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The accreditation procedure was performed by the Korean Institute for Accreditation of Medical Imaging. An Xi R/F dosimeter was used to measure the CT dose index for each plug of the CT dose index phantom. Image qualities such as the Hounsfield unit (HU) value of water, noise level, homogeneity, existence of artifacts, spatial resolution, contrast, and slice thickness were evaluated by scanning a CT performance phantom. All test items were evaluated as to whether they were within the required tolerance level. CT calibration curves-the relationship between CT number and relative electron density-were obtained for dose calculations in the treatment planning system. The positional accuracy of the lasers was also evaluated. The volume CT dose indices for the head phantom were 22.26 mGy and 23.70 mGy, and those for body phantom were 12.30 mGy and 12.99 mGy for the first and second CT simulators, respectively. HU accuracy, noise, and homogeneity for the first CT simulator were -0.2 HU, 4.9 HU, and 0.69 HU, respectively, while those for second CT simulator were 1.9 HU, 4.9 HU, and 0.70 HU, respectively. Five air-filled holes with a diameter of 1.00 mm were used for assessment of spatial resolution and a low contrast object with a diameter of 6.4 mm was clearly discernible by both CT scanners. Both CT simulators exhibited comparable performance and are acceptable for clinical use.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.941-946
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• 2019

Computed tomography (CT) has been increasing in frequency and indications for use in clinical diagnosis and treatment decisions. Multidetector CT has the advantage of shortening the inspection time and obtaining a high resolution image compared to a single detector CT, but has been pointed out the disadvantage of increasing the radiation exposure. In addition, when the low tube voltage is used to reduce the exposure dose in the CT, noise increases relatively. In the existing method, the method of finding the optimal image quality using the method of adjusting the parameters of the image reconstruction method is not a fundamental measure. In this study, we applied a double-tree complex wavelet algorithm and analyzed the results to maintain the normal signal and remove only noise. Experimental results show that the noise is reduced from 8.53 to 4.51 when using a complex oriented 2D method with 100kVp and 0.5sec rotation time. Through this study, it was possible to remove the noise and reduce the patient dose by using the optimal noise reduction algorithm. The results of this study can be used to reduce the exposure of patients due to the low dose of CT.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.292-302
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• 2012

The patient dose in advanced radiotherapy techniques is an important issue. These methods should be evaluated to reduce the dose in diagnostic imaging for radiotherapy. Especially, the Computed Tomography in radiotherapy has been used widely; hence the CT was evaluated for dose and image in this study. The evaluations for dose and image were done in equal condition due to compare the dose and image simultaneously. Furthermore, the possibility of dose and image evaluations by using the Monte Carlo simulation MCNPX was confirmed. We made the iterative reconstruction for low dose CT image to elevate image quality with Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization; MLEM. The system we developed is expected to be used not only to reduce the patient dose in radiotherapy, also to evaluate the overall factors of image modalities in industrial research.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.331-338
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• 2013

CT for follow-up visits because of liver disease, body mass index (BMI) and kVp according to the change of the image quality and radiation dose to evaluate for changes. March 2010 to June 2011 at Pusan P University Hospital, abdominal CT scans a patient BMI (Body Mass Index. Less BMI) index was less than 25 in the treatment of subjects had a 48-person Noise and SNR at 100kVp abdominal image is lager than the 120kVp image. CTDI volume value at by the analysis of the radiation dose is 4.47mGy(100kVp) and 9.01mGy(120kVp). So CTDIvol in 100kVp is smaller than CTDIvol in 120kVp(decrease by 44.1%). And, effective dose is 7.1mSv(100kVp) and 12.51mSv(120kVp). So effective dose in 100kVp is smaller than effective dose in 120kVp(decrease by 43%). Evaluation of image quality is that Unacceptable 0 person, Suboptimal 0 person, Adequate 0 person, Good 1 person, Excellent 47 person. In case of repeatly patient, we examinate abdomianl CT scan by using low kVp and body mass index less than 25. We can has good quality image and benefit of low radiation dose.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.167-175
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• 2006

With the recent prevalence of helical CT and multi-slice CT, which deliver higher radiation dose than conventional CT due to overbeaming effect in X-ray exposure and interpolation technique in image reconstruction. Although multi-detector and helical CT scanner provide a variety of opportunities for patient dose reduction, the potential risk for high radiation levels in CT examination can't be overemphasized in spite of acquiring more diagnostic information. So much more concerns is necessary about dose characteristics of CT scanner, especially dose efficient design as well as dose modulation software, because dose efficiency built into the scanner's design is probably the most important aspect of successful low dose clinical performance. This study was conducted to evaluate z-axis geometric dose efficiency in single detector CT and each level multi-detector CT, as well as to compare z-axis dose efficiency with change of technical scan parameters such as focal spot size of tube, beam collimation, detector combination, scan mode, pitch size, slice width and interval. The results obtained were as follows ; 1. SDCT was most highest and 4 MDCT was most lowest in z-axis geometric dose efficiency among SDCT, 4, 8, 16, 64 slice MDCT made by GE manufacture. 2. Small focal spot was 0.67-13.62% higher than large focal spot in z-axis geometric dose efficiency at MDCT. 3. Large beam collimation was 3.13-51.52% higher than small beam collimation in z-axis geometric dose efficiency at MDCT. 4. Z-axis geometric dose efficiency was same at 4 slice MDCT in all condition and 8 slice MDCT of large beam collimation with change of detector combination, but was changed irregularly at 8 slice MDCT of small beam collimation and 16 slice MDCT in all condition with change of detector combination. 5. There was no significant difference for z-axis geometric dose efficiency between conventional scan and helical scan, and with change of pitch factor, as well as change of slice width or interval for image reconstruction. As a conclusion, for reduction of patient radiation dose delivered from CT examination we are particularly concerned with dose efficiency of equipment and have to select proper scanning parameters which increase z-axis geometric dose efficiency within the range of preserving optimum clinical information in MDCT examination.