Due to the high radiosensitivity of the fetus and embryo, diagnostic imaging procedures for pregnant patients raise health concerns. Therefore, the authors of this work set out to develop a methodology for automated construction of patient-specific computational phantoms based on actual patient CT images with the aim of achieving accurate estimate of conceptus dose.
Key points
- The conceptus dose during diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine imaging procedures for pregnant patients raises health concerns owing to the high radiosensitivity of the developing embryo/fetus.
- The proposed methodology allows automated construction of realistic computational models that can be exploited to estimate patient-specific organ radiation doses from radiological imaging procedures.
- The dosimetric results can be used for the risk-benefit analysis of radiation hazards to conceptus from diagnostic imaging procedures, thus guiding the decision-making process.
Authors: Tianwu Xie and Habib Zaidi