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BEST IN PHYSICS (IMAGING) - Calculating SSDE From CT Exams Using Size Data Available in the DICOM Header of CT Localizer Radiographs


K McMillan

K McMillan1*, M Bostani1 , C McCollough2 , M McNitt-Gray1 , (1) UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, (2) Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

Presentations

MO-E-17A-1 Monday 1:45PM - 3:45PM Room: 17A

Purpose: To demonstrate the feasibility of using existing data stored within the DICOM header of certain CT localizer radiographs as a patient size metric for calculating CT size-specific dose estimates (SSDE).

Methods: For most Siemens CT scanners, the CT localizer radiograph (topogram) contains a private DICOM field that stores an array of numbers describing AP and LAT attenuation-based measures of patient dimension. The square root of the product of the AP and LAT size data, which provides an estimate of water-equivalent-diameter (WED), was calculated retrospectively from topogram data of 20 patients who received clinically-indicated abdomen/pelvis (n=10) and chest (n=10) scans (WED-topo). In addition, slice-by-slice water-equivalent-diameter (WED-image) and effective diameter (ED-image) values were calculated from the respective image data. Using TG-204 lookup tables, size-dependent conversion factors were determined based upon WED-topo, WED-image and ED-image values. These conversion factors were used with the reported CTDIvol to calculate slice-by-slice SSDE for each method. Averaging over all slices, a single SSDE value was determined for each patient and size metric. Patient-specific SSDE and CTDIvol values were then compared with patient-specific organ doses derived from detailed Monte Carlo simulations of fixed tube current scans.

Results: For abdomen/pelvis scans, the average difference between liver dose and CTDIvol, SSDE(WED-topo), SSDE(WED-image), and SSDE(ED-image) was 18.70%, 8.17%, 6.84%, and 7.58%, respectively. For chest scans, the average difference between lung dose and CTDIvol, SSDE(WED-topo), SSDE(WED-image), and SSDE(ED-image) was 25.80%, 3.33%, 4.11%, and 7.66%, respectively.

Conclusion: SSDE calculated using WED derived from data in the DICOM header of the topogram was comparable to SSDE calculated using WED and ED derived from axial images; each of these estimated organ dose to within 10% for both abdomen/pelvis and chest CT examinations. The topogram-based method has the advantage that WED data are already provided and therefore available without additional post-processing of the image data.

Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: Funding Support: NIH Grant R01-EB017095; Disclosures - Michael McNitt-Gray: Institutional Research Agreement, Siemens AG; Research Support, Siemens AG; Consultant, Flaherty Sensabaugh Bonasso PLLC; Consultant, Fulbright and Jaworski; Disclosures - Cynthia McCollough: Research Grant, Siemens Healthcare


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