| Abstract [eng] |
Computed tomography is a fast and accurate diagnostic tool used in everyday medical practice. Due to the convenience of the imaging technique, recurrent scans have become increasingly common over the last few decades. Computed tomography currently accounts for only 9.6 % of all radiological procedures, but corresponds to as much as 61.6 % of all effective doses delivered to patients. An increasing number of patients are receiving considerably high total effective doses of 100 mSv or more in a short period of time (1-5 years). As even low doses can increase the lifetime risk of cancer, the high cumulative doses received by an increasing number of patients undergoing computed tomography scans are a cause for concern for many international radiology and radiological protection organizations. The aim of this study was to carry out an assessment of the cumulative radiation doses and cancer risk of recurrent computed tomography examinations. For this study, depersonalized information was collected from a computed tomography scan database on patients (aged 18 years and older) in one Lithuanian hospital who had at least one computed tomography scan during a 3-year period (from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021). Data from 5,060 patients with 2 or more CT scans were selected. Of these, 103 patients were selected as the ones with the highest number of submissions to the system. Analysis of the data showed that the maximum cumulative radiation exposure to a single patient was 638 mSv, with a maximum additional cumulative lifetime cancer risk of 9.78%. The most common indication for recurrent computed tomography scans was found to be follow-up of oncological disease (83 % of the patients evaluated). |
