Purpose: In each clinical case, the equipment display dose is used for interventional radiology (IVR) dose management and conform to the Japan diagnostic reference levels 2020 (DRLs 2020). However, dose management software corresponding to the DRLs 2020 using radiation dose structured report (RDSR) is not sufficiently widespread. This study aimed to assess the usefulness of in-house developed dose management software in IVR utilizing radiology information system (RIS), which can record both procedures and lesions.
Methods: In this study, IVR from July to September 2020 was analyzed (cardiac regions: 141 cases and other regions: 149 cases). The evaluation items were air kerma-area product, air kerma at the patient entrance reference point, and patient information (height, weight, and BMI). Each subject of DRLs 2020 was analyzed by 12 radiological technologists in charge of IVR. The difference between results of the manual analysis and those of the in-house developed dose management software was calculated using paired t-test in terms of analysis time.
Results: The analysis time for the cardiac and other regions was 4180.25±1161.79 s and 4366.92±1393.19 s in the manual analysis, and 36.25±15.32 s and 38.08±17.34 s in the software. The use of software indicated a significant reduction in analysis time (p<0.05). The analysis accuracy of the cardiac and other regions was 96.30% and 98.89% in the software.
Conclusion: These results show the usefulness of dose management software utilizing RIS.
Keywords: diagnostic reference level; dose management; interventional radiology; radiology information system.