CT-guided brachytherapy of prostate cancer: reduction of effective dose from X-ray examination

摘要

Computed tomography (CT) is one of the most effective and informative diagnostic method. Though the number of CT scans among all radiographic procedures in the USA and European countries is 11% and 4% respectively, CT makes the highest contribution to the collective effective dose from all radiographic procedures, it is 67% in the USA and 40% in European countries. Therefore it is necessary to understand the significance of dose value from CT imaging to a patient. Though CT dose from multiple scans and potential risk is of great concern in pediatric patients, this applies to adults as well. In this connection it is very important to develop optimal approaches to dose reduction and optimization of CT examination. International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) in its publications recommends radiologists to be aware that often CT image quality is higher than it is necessary for diagnostic confidence and there is a potential to reduce the dose which patient gets from CT examination. In recent years many procedures, such as minimally invasive surgery, biopsy, brachytherapy and different types of ablation are carried out under guidance of computed tomography, and during a procedures multiple CT scans focusing on a specific anatomic region are performed. At the Clinics of MRRC different types of treatment for patients with prostate cancer are used, incuding conformal CT-guided brachytherapy, implantation of microsources of I~(125) into the gland under guidance of spiral CT. So, the purpose of the study is to choose optimal method to reduce radiation dose from CT during CT-guided prostate brachytherapy and to obtain the image of desired quality.