Abdominal imaging dose in radiology and radiotherapy – Phantom point dose measurements, effective dose and secondary cancer risk

•Imaging dose in radiology and radiotherapy are measured and compared.•Secondary cancer risk is estimated for different 3D imaging techniques.•Modern radiology techniques offer the potential of greatly decreasing imaging dose.•It might be possible to reduce IGRT dose further by adopting similar strategies in future developments of imaging systems. To compare abdominal imaging dose from 3D imaging in radiology (standard/low-dose/dual-energy CT) and radiotherapy (planning CT, kV cone-beam CT (CBCT)). Dose was measured by thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD’s) placed at 86 positions in an anthropomorphic phantom. Point, organ and effective dose were assessed, and secondary cancer risk from imaging was estimated. Overall dose and mean organ dose comparisons yield significantly lower dose for the optimized radiology protocols (dual-source and care kV), with an average dose of 0.34±0.01 mGy and 0.54±0.01 mGy (average ± standard deviation), respectively. Standard abdominal CT and planning CT involve considerably higher dose (13.58 ± 0.18 mGy and 18.78±0.27 mGy, respectively). The CBCT dose show a dose fall-off near the field edges. On average, dose is reduced as compared with the planning or standard CT (3.79 ± 0.21 mGy for 220° rotation and 7.76 ± 0.37 mGy for 360°), unless the high-quality setting is chosen (20.30 ± 0.96 mGy). The mean organ doses show a similar behavior, which translates to the estimated secondary cancer risk. The modelled risk is in the range between 0.4 cases per million patient years (PY) for the radiological scans dual-energy and care kV, and 300 cases per million PY for the high-quality CBCT setting. Modern radiotherapy imaging techniques (while much lower in dose than radiotherapy), involve considerably more dose to the patient than modern radiology techniques. Given the frequency of radiotherapy imaging, a further reduction in radiotherapy imaging dose appears to be both desirable and technically feasible.