Simulation and analysis of CT examination doses to typical patients based on Chinese reference human phantoms

Objective: To simulate and analyze the CT examination doses to typical patients based on Chinese reference human phantom, and to develop an online software for assessing the organ absorbed dose and effective dose to the examinees undergoing CT examination in order to provide a tool for rapid assessment of radiation dose from CT examination. Methods: Based on the Monte Carlo simulation, a GE LightSpeed 16 CT scanner was modeled. The organ doses to Chinese adult male, female and 1 year-old child male from single axial scan were calculated based on the Chinese reference phantoms and an organ dose database was established. A web-based CT dose assessment software was developed to read the data from the organ dose database according to the CT scanning parameters entered by the user and to calculate the organ absorbed dose and effective dose rapidly. Results: A new CT dose assessment software was developed, which can be used to assess organ doses to Chinese adult male, female and 1-year-old male for different CT scanner, voltage, current, collimator width and other CT parameters. The organ doses calculated in this work were compared with simulation data in two relevant studies. Dose differences for the organs completely included in the scan range were small, with relative differences less than 15% and 25%, respectively. Conclusions: The CT dose assessment software provides a powerful tool for the simple and rapid assessment of radiation dose to the examinees undergoing CT examinations. (authors)