Assessment of Radiation Doses for Paediatric Head, Chest, and Abdominopelvic Computed Tomography Examinations in a Teaching Hospital in Ghana

Abstract Introduction With the increasing number of pediatric computed tomography (CT) examinations, there is a need to optimise protocols for children by adopting examination-specific protocols customised to the patient’s age, size, imaging region, and clinical indication. This study aimed to assess the radiation doses in pediatric CT examinations and compare them to international standards. Material and methods A cross-sectional retrospective study design was adopted to probe patient records at the radiology department of a teaching hospital in Ghana. Thus, scan parameters, volume computed tomography dose index (CTDI vol ), dose length product (DLP), as well as demographic data, were recorded from 496 pediatric patients (age 0-15 years) undergoing head, chest, and abdominopelvic CT examinations. Local Diagnostic Reference Levels (LDRLs) were established using the 75th percentile of patient dose values for each protocol and age group. These local levels were then compared with DRLs from other studies. Results Head CT was the most performed examination (35.0%) compared to chest (32.0%) and abdominopelvic (33.0%). The male group recorded the highest (59.1%) percentage of CT examinations compared to the female group. While LDRL values from this study were generally lower than data from other studies, the CTDI vol and DLP for head scans of patients between 11 and 15 years were found to be higher than the data from other studies. Conclusions Our study has established LDRLs for standard pediatric CT examinations in the teaching hospital. The LDRLs were generally lower than those reported in other studies, except for head scans in patients aged 11 to 15 years. These findings suggest that there are opportunities for further optimisation of pediatric CT imaging protocols at this facility.