Iterative Reconstruction Techniques Help Reduce Radiation Dose for Pediatric Brain CT

Investigators have revealed that estimated radiation doses are substantially lower for pediatric computed tomography (CT) scans of the brain that use an adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) technique compared to those that did not use ASIR.

The researchers found that the brain and salivary gland doses were much lower for ASIR-enabled exams compared to those without ASIR technique. However, no differences in the estimated organ doses were found for the thyroid gland, skeleton, and eye lenses across these two cohorts of CT exams.

“CT radiation dose is an important concern with all imaging sites, especially for children,” said Dr. Ranish Deedar Ali Khawaja, from Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA, USA) and Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA). “We performed this study to do a preliminary analysis of pediatric head CT examinations and to assess the factors influencing radiation doses.”

Mean radiation dose was 1.6 ± 1.5 mSv (estimated effective dose) in pediatric head CT scans. In addition to the iterative reconstruction algorithm, patient age and effective body diameter substantially affected the doses. Dr. Khawaja and his colleagues presented the study’s findings at the 2014 American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) annual meeting, held in San Diego (CA, USA), May 4–9, 2014.

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Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School