Estimation of Effective Doses and Lifetime Risk of Exposure-induced Cancer Death in Pediatric CT Scans

The increasing frequency of computed tomography (CT) scans for a range of purposes, particularly pediatrics, has raised concerns regarding the population's radiation exposure and subsequent chances of cancers. This study aimed to estimate the effective doses of pediatrics radiation and induced cancer risks from five most common CT scan procedures in Yazd Province, Iran.

Data of pediatric patients from four age groups of ≤1, 1-5, 5-10, and 10-15 years old were retrospectively collected from 6 educational institutions located in diverse areas of Yazd Province. For each participant, the effective doses and REID (risk of exposure-induced death) rate were estimated by Impact Dose and PCXMC software, respectively. Then, the findings were reported by categorizing the patients regarding their effective diameter.

The effective doses and REID values did not show any significant differences among the studied age groups. The highest mean of effective dose was recorded for the scan of abdomen-pelvis (average ± standard deviation, 5.24±3.19 mSv) followed by chest (3.76±2.28 mSv), brain (1.25±1.07 mSv), and sinus (0.65±0.4 mSv) examinations. The highest REID was documented for chest scan (490±314 excess deaths in one million scans) followed by abdomen-pelvis procedure (404±280).

The radiation doses delivered to the pediatric patients and the associated fatal cancer risk with common CT procedures were comparably in the same range of the previous studies. Our findings can represent an estimation of the radiation-induced risks of CT scans and can be used for extending the knowledge of clinicians and researchers.