Software often estimates radiation dose delivered to organs based on standardized models that don't accurately represent the individual patient being scanned, according to presenter Pierre Guntzer of GE Healthcare. In a research collaboration between GE and Duke University, Duke researchers developed a modified version of their organ-dose calculation algorithm that could make use of patient-specific anatomical landmarks calculated by GE's DoseWatch tracking software.
"DoseWatch was used to provide, for each exam, a set of landmarks to the Duke organ dose-calculation system," Guntzer told AuntMinnie.com. "The system is completely automatic and provides organ dose estimations for every exam performed on three GE CT [scanners] at Duke."
Knowledge of the anatomical landmarks for every exam is valuable for a number of reasons, including making it possible to calculate dose-length product (DLP) for each region, he said.
"It makes no sense to just cumulate the doses received by patient if the exams are not performed on the same site (i.e., summing absorbed doses to chest and pelvis)," Guntzer said. "With this method it's obvious to compute a DLP for chest, a DLP for abdomen ... and provide, for each patient, the dose history for each region."
It's also useful for calculating organ dose and would make it possible for GE to include a size-specific dose estimate (SSDE) water equivalent into DoseWatch. What's more, the metric is also beneficial on its own, according to Guntzer.
"It shows where the scanned area is with respect to the anatomical regions," he said. "This metric will be provided to our users for dose-optimization purposes."
Learn how the GE and Duke team accomplished its goal by taking in this Sunday presentation.
