Investigation into patient doses for intravenous urography and proposed Irish diagnostic reference levels |
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Authors: | E?M?Carroll Email author" target="_blank">P?C?BrennanEmail author |
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Institution: | (1) UCD School of Diagnostic Imaging, St. Anthony's, Herbert Avenue, Dublin 4, Ireland |
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Abstract: | With the introduction of Council Directive 97/43/Euratom, all member states should establish relevant diagnostic reference
levels for X-ray examinations. Diagnostic reference levels help to facilitate standardisation and optimisation within departments
and attempt to reduce dose variations between hospitals. High variation of individual patient doses for plain-film examinations
by up to a factor of 75 was demonstrated by a previous Irish study, which highlighted the necessity for further investigation
into other examinations in Ireland. The current work aimed to establish reference values for intravenous urography (IVU) examinations,
an important contributor to collective dose. Eleven Irish hospitals were randomly selected, representing 30% of the total
number of hospitals. Dose-area product (DAP) readings for IVUs were recorded along with technical and procedural details.
Resultant data demonstrated mean hospital and individual patient DAP variations of a factor of 4 and 58, respectively. Stepwise
regression analysis demonstrated that number of images taken, method of image acquisition and patient weight were the main
causal agents for dose variations recorded. A proposed diagnostic reference level of 12 Gy cm2 was established at the level of the third-quartile value of the mean hospital DAP values. This article provides evidence
of large variations in DAP values for IVU examinations. It is hoped that application of the proposed DRL of 12 Gy cm2 will reduce the size of these variations. |
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Keywords: | Radiation doses Diagnostic reference levels Intravenous urograms |
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