Evaluation of the effective dose in an abdominal CT protocol using Virtual Dose™ and NCICT ™ software

The incidence of indications for Computed Tomography (CT) scans has been growing considerably, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Brazil alone, in the year 2020, 160,806 chest CT scans were performed in the country, with 76,486 scans performed solely in February, evidencing a peak since the beginning of the year. Many studies have been conducted in recent years, using software tools for dose estimation in CT, aimed to understand the generated doses and optimize these exposures. In this context, this study aimed to estimate and compare the doses received by a sample of 50 patients who underwent abdominal CT scans at a public hospital in the southern region of Brazil, using the Virtual Dose^TM and NCICTT ^TM software. The results enabled correlation of the estimated doses obtained with the Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) available in the literature, contributing to the dose estimation studies in Brazil. (author)