2021 International Conference on Medical Imaging Physics and Engineering and the 10th National Annual Meeting of Medical Imaging Physics (ICMIPE 2021)

Pregnant women and children are sometimes required for chest CT scans during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study provides fetal and pediatric organ doses from chest CT scans used to screen patients for COVID-19. Organ doses and effective doses are calculated using the VirtualDose-CT software. Two groups of computational human phantoms, pregnant females at three gestational stages (3, 6 and 9 months) and pediatric patients at four different ages (the newborn, 1-, 5-, and 10-year-old) are considered in this study. For scanner parameters considered in this study, fetal total absorbed doses from chest scans are found to be 0.07, 0.08 and 0.11 mGy, for 3, 6 and 9 months of pregnancy, respectively. When the scan range is extended to the abdominal region, fetal total doses increase by 388.86%. The effective doses from chest scans were 2.71, 2.61, 2.57, 2.10 mSv, for the newborn, 1-, 5-, and 10-year-old children, respectively. In addition, the effects of specific axial scan ranges exceeding the thorax region are evaluated. Although organ doses and potential cancer risks from chest CT scans are negligible, such data allow radiologists and patients to be informed of the dose levels as well as ways to avoid unnecessary radiation.

VirtualDose,CT dosimetry,fetal dose,pediatric dose,COVID-19,chest CT