MO-D-BRA-01: Limits of Dose Reduction in CT: Where are They and How Will We Know When We Get There?

Radiation Dose continues to be a concern with respect to all diagnostic imaging using ionizing radiation, but especially so with CT imaging. We have always known how to reduce radiation dose in CT - for example, simply turning down the system output (e.g. reduce mAs). What we have not been able to do is to simultaneously reduce dose and maintain "diagnostic image quality". Many recent technical developments have appeared, and will continue to appear, that will allow users to reduce radiation dose in CT while "maintaining image quality". However, this last term is ill-defined and current metrics of image quality are not very applicable to actual clinical practice. The purpose of this symposium is to: (a) describe several current and possible future radiation dose reduction methods and the magnitude of their potential for dose reduction, (b) some description of what "diagnostic image quality" means, the effects that dose reductions methods have on this property, description of some metrics that may help us assess this property quantitatively and this information can be used to guide how low radiation doses can be reduced.

1. Understand both conventional and emerging radiation dose reduction methods in CT. 2. Understand the implications on diagnostic image quality for each radiation dose reduction method. 3. Understand some of the issues in evaluating how much radiation dose can be reduced and still accomplish a diagnostic imaging task.