Male patients dosimetry undergoing brain PET/CT exam for diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment

Abstract

Diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) can indicate an initial dementia framework, or increase in the likelihood of developing this. The PET/CT (positron emission tomography associated with computed tomography) has shown excellent prospects for MCI diagnosis. The PET/CT helps diagnosis, but the patients effective dose is higher, it depends on the computed tomography (CT) protocol and the radiopharmaceutical patient injected activity. This study evaluates the dose in 38 male patients undergoing this technique for MCI diagnosis. To assess the radiation level from CT modality imaging was used TLD100 detectors embedded in a male anthropomorphic Alderson Randon® phantom, undergoing the same imaging protocol to which patients were referred. The dose resulting of radiopharmaceutical injected activity was estimated using the ICRP106 model proposed. The PET / CT effective dose for producing image was (5.12 ± 0.90) mSv. The contribution to the effective dose due to the FDG brain incorporation was (0.12 ± 0.01) mSv and thyroid (0.13 ± 0.02) mSv. The effective dose contribution due to brain and thyroid CT irradiation was (0.18 ± 0.01) mSv and (0.010 ± 0.001) mSv, respectively. The use of optimized CT protocols and FDG injected activity reduction can assist in this procedure dose reduction.