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- A recent retrospective study examined CT radiation doses in different types of facilities
- Mean patient age: 12 years
- Authors reviewed radiation doses for nearly 240,000 CT scans in over 500 facilities
- The facilities were categorized into 4 groups:
- 1) academic pediatric,
- 2) non-academic pediatric,
- 3) academic adult,
- 4) non-academic adult
Most (65%) scans were performed at nonacademic adult centers
- Radiation doses were significantly higher at adult facilities vs. pediatric facilities
- Also, radiation doses were higher at non-academic vs. academic facilities
- For example, the largest children received twice the radiation dose for abdomen-pelvis CT scans performed at nonacademic adult facilities compared with academic pediatric facilities
- 11.9 mGy vs. 5.8 mGy
- Academic pediatric facilities use lower radiation doses than do nonacademic pediatric or adult facilities for all head CT examinations and for the majority of chest and abdomen-pelvis
References
Strauss et al., 2019. Radiation Dose for Pediatric CTT: Comparison of Pediatric versus Adult Imaging Facilities