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Conformance of mean glandular dose from phantom and patient data in mammography
A Kelaranta1, P Toroi2, M Timonen3
1STUK-Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Laippatie 4, PO Box 14, Helsinki FI-00881, Finland Helsinki Medical Imaging Center, University Hospital of Helsinki, PO Box 340, Helsinki FI-00290, Finland Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, PO Box 64, Helsinki FI-00014, Finland anna.kelaranta@alumni.helsinki.fi.
Abstract:
In mammography dosimetry, phantoms are often used to represent breast tissue. The conformance of phantom- and patient-based mean glandular dose (MGD) estimates was evaluated mainly from the aspect of diagnostic reference levels. Patient and phantom exposure data were collected for eight diagnostic and three screening mammography devices. More extensive assessments were performed for two devices. The average breast thickness was close to the nationally used reference of 50 mm in diagnostic (50 mm, SD = 13 mm, n = 5342) and screening (47 mm, SD = 13 mm, n = 395) examinations. The average MGD for all breasts differed by 2% from the MGD determined for breasts in the limited compressed thickness range of 40-60 mm. The difference between phantom- and patient-based MGD estimations was up to 30%. Therefore, phantom measurements cannot replace patient dose data in MGD determination.
