Effective dose for kidney-ureter-bladder plain radiography, intravenous urography, and abdominal computed tomography scan: A phantom study

Abdominal colic pain or hematuria is suspected to be caused by urinary tract stones. Commonly used X-ray examinations include kidney-ureter-bladder plain radiography (KUB), intravenous urography (IVU), and abdominal computed tomography (CT). In this study, a high-sensitivity thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) was embedded in a Rando phantom to directly measure organ dose and evaluate effective dose. During each experiment, 139 TLD measurement points that cover almost all organs (as recommended by the ICRP 103 report) were examined. Red bone-marrow and remainder tissues have a high tissue weighting factor (0.12), and they are widely distributed. In the phantom, 34 TLDs and 31 TLDs were embedded in the red bone-marrow and remainder tissues to improve the accuracy and representativeness of organ doses. The detailed organ dose distributions for KUB, IVU, and abdominal CT are presented. The effective doses for KUB and IVU were 0.22 and 1.51 mSv, respectively, and those for two abdominal CTs were 8.21 and 9.27 mSv. This experiment presents a conversion factor of 0.0177 mSv.mGy(-1) cm(-1) for the abdominal CT examination, which differs from most of the conversion factors obtained through the Monte Carlo simulation method.

Automated summary

In this study, a high-sensitivity thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) was used to measure organ dose and evaluate effective dose in various X-ray examinations for suspected urinary tract stones. The experiment provided detailed organ dose distributions for kidney-ureter-bladder plain radiography (KUB), intravenous urography (IVU), and abdominal computed tomography (CT). The findings contribute to the understanding of abdominal colic pain and hematuria caused by urinary tract stones.