CT Dose Surveys

The CT Users group has been associated with a number of national efforts to gather and publish patient dose survey data for CT scannning in the UK.

UK Paediatric CT dose survey

The IPEM paediatric optimisation working party, in collaboration with PHE, launched a UK paediatric CT dose survey in June 2019.

The following is from the email announcing the survey:

UK Paediatric CT dose survey

This survey aims to collect protocol and patient dose data for the four most commonly undertaken paediatric CT examinations. It has been designed to be versimilar to the adult CT dose audit form in use by PHE, so it should appear familiar. We have also attached a PDF help sheet that describes where the information we are requesting can be found across all four CT manufacturers.

As has already been communicated to the JISCmailbase (from Matt Dunn, 18th December 2018), this audit will require the submission of patient weight as a mandatory field for body examinations. It has not proven possible in the past to propose national DRLs for body examinations based only on dose and patient age - this is the reason we only have national DRLs for paediatric CT head examinations. We ask that MPEs engage with their MDTs and explain the importance of recording patient weight for the purposes of this audit, and for local optimisation. We will also be communicating this through SCoR and RCR channels.

Data should be contemporary and represent current practice. Where retrospective data is submitted, this should be no older than January 2017 and only for scanners still in use.

Data submission is open until the end of September 2019 [Note: this has now been extended to 31st Dec 2019]. If it is considered that insufficient data has been received for any examination at this time, this will be extended.

It is the intention that participating centres will be acknowledged in the final report. If you do not wish your centre to be identified please state this when submitting data.

The dose audit has received CPD endorsement from the Society and College of Radiographers. Participation may help to support outcomes 1 to 7, 9, 11, 12, 19 and 20 of CPD now. Please bring this to the attention of your radiographer colleagues.

The data collection form and scanner help sheets can now be downloaded from the CT users group website.

To submit data, please email ipem.paed.optimisation@gmail.com. For any queries, please email markworrall@nhs.net.

Fourth UK National CT dose survey

Public Health England launched the 4th UK CT dose survey on 22nd March 2019. The following is from the email sent to the CTusers mail base announcing the survey:

Fourth UK National CT dose survey

This survey aims to collect protocol and patient dose index data for adult CT examinations. A separate survey, undertaken by IPEM in collaboration with PHE, is also being carried out to look at paediatric doses. The paediatric survey is due to be launched soon. The survey forms used for both surveys will be very similar in appearance and you may wish to collect data for both surveys at the same time, but submit the data to the separate surveys.

This survey is requesting data for 13 examinations. We would also welcome data for other adult examinations that you routinely perform and/or have the highest doses. We will consider setting National DRLs for additional examinations if sufficient data are received. Recent national surveys have proposed NDRLs for coronary CT angiography and PET-CT/SPECT-CT scans, therefore these examinations have deliberately been excluded from this survey.

If you intend to use a dose management system (DMS) to collect data for this survey you may wish to speak to your supplier first to see whether they have, or are working on, automatic tools to extract the data and export the required fields to this spreadsheet format as we have been in contact with a number of suppliers to implement this feature. This approach is still in progress.

Data should be contemporary and represent current practice. Where retrospective data is submitted, this should be no older than January 2017 and only for scanners still in use.

Data submission is open until the end of July 2019. If it is considered that insufficient data has been received for any examination at this time, this will be extended.

It is the intention that participating centres will be acknowledged in the final report. If you do not wish your centre to be identified please state this when submitting data.

An application has been made to the Society and College of Radiographers for CPD endorsement to participate in this survey, and if this is approved we will inform you via the medical physics mailbase.

The data collection form and scanner help sheets are available from the CT users group web site.

For any queries and to submit data please email medicalradiationdoses@phe.gov.uk.

Many thanks for your continued support, John Holroyd Medical Dosimetry Group Public Health England 01235 825 308 medicalradiationdoses@phe.gov.uk

Third UK National CT dose survey

In 2011, the HPA conducted a third survey of CT practice covering the whole of the UK. The aims were to assess changes since the last survey in 2003, provide guidance for more recently established examinations, update existing examination specific national reference doses, and provide a baseline for potential follow-up optimisation studies.

Members of the CTUG were greatly involved in this survey, and updates were provided at subsequent meetings.

The results of this survey were published in 2014, as PHE-CRCE-013: Doses from computed tomography (CT) examinations in the UK (2011 Review).

Second National CT Dose survey

The 2003 NRPB/CTUG/ImPACT CT survey was published by the NRPB as report NRPB-W67, Doses from Computed Tomography (CT) Examinations in the UK - 2003 Review. Click on the link to download the report.