LAUSR

Biological effects induced by exposure to radiation made evident the need for an accurate dosimetry from the early days of X-ray use in medicine. Later the scientific interest turned also to the estimation of risks of radiation-induced cancer and genetic effects. Various dosimetric quantities have been used in diagnostic radiology and sometimes confusion is caused because the same name is used for different quantities. The question arises: what is patient dose and what is not? It’s common practice to indicate the dose received by a patient in radiology using the dosimetric indexes defined for the different imaging modalities. However, dosimetric indexes are a useful tool for practices optimization and comparison, but certainly they don’t describe patient dose. To accurately estimate patient dose there is the need to collect a lot of information concerning patient characteristics and irradiation events in order to obtain organ or tissue dose. Nowadays, thanks to the digital technology used in medical imaging, various ways of collecting these data are available. The information is communicated using specific standards (i.e. DICOM), such as the non-image information object definitions. These objects are carrying information about equipment output and other dose related information which allow the user to provide a more accurate estimate of patient dose. The standards are in continuous development, to provide more and more detailed information and to include most recent modalities (e.g. CBCT). This talk will review the basic concepts on patient dosimetry as well as the existing DICOM objects and IHE profiles used to monitor patient exposure, highlighting pros and cons and introducing to the future developments.