Radiation exposure to patients in a multicenter coronary angiography trial (CORE 64).

OBJECTIVE. The objective of this study was to assess the exposure of patients to radiation for the cardiac CT acquisition protocol of the multicenter Coronary Artery Evaluation Using 64-Row Multidetector Computed Tomography Angiography (CORE 64) trial.MATERIALS AND METHODS. An algorithm for patient dose assessment with Monte Carlo dosimetry was developed for the Aquilion 64-MDCT scanner. During the CORE 64 study, different acquisition protocols were used depending on patient size and sex; therefore, six patient models were constructed representing three men and three women in the categories of small, normal size, and obese. Organ dose and effective dose resulting from the cardiac CT protocol were assessed for these six patient models.RESULTS. The average effective dose for coronary CT angiography (CTA) calculated according to Report 103 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is 19 mSv (range, 16–26 mSv). The average effective dose for the whole cardiac CT protocol including CT s...