Importance of Patient Dose Evaluation and Optimization in Thorax Computed Tomography

Computed tomography (CT) is one of the most important imaging modalities in modern medicine. Using CT, one can obtain useful information about a patient’s health status, or condition. As this modality delivers some amount of radiation to the patient’s body that can be harmful, special attention must be paid to choosing appropriate parameters that can reduce the dose but maintain helpful diagnostic information from the CT image. Radiation doses for CT examinations vary considerably among patients, institutions, and countries. This variation is mostly attributable to the technical parameters of the CT scanning protocols. An optimization process is a team effort of the CT radiologist, the lead CT technologist, and the clinically qualified medical physicist. The purpose of this study is to analyze patient doses in thorax CT in two public hospitals in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Data were collected from five different CT devices from these hospitals, using the OpenREM system. The optimization process in both hospitals was surveyed as well, investigating their benefits and shortcomings. Finally, we propose possible ways for future optimization and harmonization of existing protocols in two hospitals, by adjusting different technical parameters such as the tube voltage, tube current, and pitch.