Evaluation of Image Quality, Organ Dose, Effective Dose and Cancer Risk in Pediatric Chest CT Procedure

The increasing frequency of pediatric chest CT scans has raised concerns regarding the radiation-induced cancer risks. The aim of this study was to evaluate image quality, organ doses, effective dose, and radiation-induced cancer risk from pediatric chest CT scans.

This is a cross- sectional study that was conducted on 128 children under 15 years old (52 girls and 76 boys) who underwent non-contrast chest CT scans. Patients were classified into four age groups of ≤1, 1-5, 5-10, and 10-15 years old. ImpactDose software was used to calculate organ doses, and risk of exposure-induced death (REID) values were estimated according to the BEIR VII report. In addition, image quality criteria including image noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were also investigated.

The mean values of REID in pediatric chest CT scans were 129.43 per 100,000 women and 49.59 per 100,000 men. REID values decreased with the increasing age of patients and were higher for girls than for boys. The SNR values for the descending aorta, subcutaneous fat, and back muscle were 3.14, 12.14, and 5.42, respectively. In addition, CNRaorto-fat and CNRmuscle-fat values were equal to 15.41 and 17.53, respectively.

Chest CT scan in pediatrics is related to an increased potential risk of cancer. Therefore, chest CT in children should only be requested if the diagnostic benefits outweigh the radiation-related risks.