SU-E-I-55: Cumulative Radiation Exposure and Cancer Risk Estimates in Pediatric Hydrocephalus Patients Undergoing Repeat Or Multiple CT

Medical Physics
X WangJ Zhang

Abstract

Children with a shunt for hydrocephalus often undergo multiple follow-up head CT scans, increasing the risk for long-term effects of ionizing radiation. The study is to define a conservative estimate of frequent CT head scans for pediatric patients with a shunt for hydrocephalus and to quantify their cumulative CT radiation doses and lifetime attributable risk of developing cancer. All children at age of less than 17 years with a shunt for hydrocephalus who underwent non-enhanced head CT at a tertiary hospital between 2007 and 2011 were identified and categorized by total number of scans per study period as non-frequently (<3), or frequently (>=3) scanned. We retrospectively identified the number of CT head scans, dose length product (DLP) and the applied scan parameters according to age, gender and study time. Effective doses were estimated using age- specific DLP to effective dose conversion coefficients. Lifetime attributable cancer risk was then estimated based on the BEIR VII. During the 5-year study period, a total of 264 children (mean age, 5.5 years; range less than one month to 17 years; 146 boys and 118 girls) underwent 747 CT head scans, of whom 100 patients (41.7%) were frequently scanned. The median and mean of fre...Continue Reading

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