Effect of kV on image quality and radiation dose in pediatric nonenhanced skull computed tomography at the Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael

Authors

  • Victor Ramos Físico médico. Servicio de Imágenes Diagnósticas, Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, Bogotá, Colombia
  • María Rosaria Baldissera Salgado Especialista en Gerencia y Auditoría de Calidad en Salud. Servicio de Imágenes Diagnósticas, Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, Bogotá, Colombia
  • Javier Mauricio Mora Méndez Médico especialista en medicina interna y epidemiología, magister en educación para la salud. Departamento de Medicina Interna, Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, Bogotá, Colombia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6722-1981
  • Diego Pineda Neurorradiólogo. Servicio de Imágenes Diagnósticas, Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, Bogotá, Colombia.
  • David González Neurorradiólogo. Servicio de Imágenes Diagnósticas, Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, Bogotá, Colombia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32685/2590-7468/invapnuclear.6.2022.655

Keywords:

Computed Tomography, radiation dose, image quality, noise, spatial resolution

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Copyright (c) 2022 Victor Ramos, María Baldissera, Javier Mora, Diego Pineda, David González

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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[1]
V. Ramos, M. R. Baldissera Salgado, J. M. Mora Méndez, D. Pineda, and D. González, “Effect of kV on image quality and radiation dose in pediatric nonenhanced skull computed tomography at the Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael”, rev. investig. apl. nucl., no. 6, pp. 46–55, Oct. 2022.

Issue

No. 6 (2022)

Section

Articles

Published

2022-10-31
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Abstract

To reduce the radiation dose in the pediatric population between 0 and 10 years old who undergo simple skull tomography at the Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, the kVs used to acquire simple skull computed tomography (CT) was reduced from 120 to 80 kV. Retrospectively, the image quality of the CT scans of 33 patients from each group was compared. A quantitative analysis is performed using the contrast-to-noise ratio between gray matter and white matter, and an index of artifacts in the posterior fossa. The qualitative analysis of anonymized images was performed by two neuroradiologists with more than five years of experience using the European scale criteria for CT image quality. CTDIvol and DLP values from all studies are recorded, and SSDE is estimated for each patient. A 26.4% increase in the contrast-to-noise ratio between gray matter and white matter is obtained in the group taken at 80 kV compared to that at 120 kV; this is consistent with the improvement in spatial resolution perceived by radiologists. In the qualitative and quantitative analysis, the increase in noise for the 80 kV group was insignificant compared to the 120 kV group. A close to 10% decrease in dose indicators was obtained in the group taken with 80 kV compared to the group taken with 120 kV. It is concluded that with the decrease in kV at our institution, a 19.3% reduction in radiation dose received by patients was obtained, and the diagnostic acceptability of the studies decreased by 2.8%. A 19.3% reduction in the radiation dose received by patients is obtained by the kV reduction at our institution; diagnostic acceptability, noise and spatial resolution do not present statistically significant differences (p>0,05) between the readings of the radiologists for 120 kV vs. 80 kV.

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