Detailed CT dosimetry in Moroccan hospitals as a preparation for the development of national DRL’s.

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study is to estimate local DRL values for computed tomography (CT) procedures, corresponding to Head, Chest, and Abdomen-Pelvis examinations (single acquisition), in Moroccan hospitals.Methods: A total of 1917 diagnostic CT examinations were included in this study. Firstly, we analyzed the CT dose indicators CTDIvol and DLP of all the examinations collected. Although we have proposed local diagnostic reference levels just for: head, thorax, abdomen-pelvis, due to the lack of data for the other examinations. Furthermore, we calculated the effective dose for chest examination using CT-expo software to estimate effective and organ dose for chest CT.The results: showed that the estimated local DRLs using CTDIvol are 48 mGy, 14 mGy, and 12 mGy for head, chest, and abdomen-pelvis respectively, and 986 mGy.cm, 496 mGy.cm, and 651 mGy.cm for DLP, respectively.Conclusion: This work establishes local DRLs for CTDIvol and total DLP for head, chest, and abdomen-pelvis procedures and proposes chest effective doses for adult patients. The study shows that the results are conforming to the literature.