THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK IN MONITORING PATIENTS' RADIATION DOSES IN MAMMOGRAPHY.

The majority of medical facilities in the Slovak Republic archive diagnostic images of their patients in a picture archiving and communicating system (PACS). Data from the PACS system can be used to analyse patient radiation dose and perform internal and external quality control through dose monitoring software systems. However, appropriate use of such systems requires the provision of feedback and the ability of staff to identify causes of diagnostic reference level exceedances.

PRECAUTION IN THE USE OF EFFECTIVE DOSE IN CORONARY CT ANGIOGRAPHY.

The effective dose is a quantity used in clinical practice for statistical evaluation of the radiation dose of patients undergoing different types of examinations. Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is a specific examination whose calculated effective dose may be subject to several biases. For this reason, it is important to consider factors (different examination techniques, heart rate and patient habitus) that may influence its resulting value.

UPTAKE AND DISTRIBUTION OF RADIOSTRONTIUM IN TOMATO TREATED WITH ARBUSCULAR MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) were inoculated into the root system of edible tomato plants to investigate their effect on the uptake and distribution of strontium radionuclide in the tissues of plants grown under laboratory conditions. The experiments were carried out in a sterile mixture of topsoil and sand, where in one series of experiments contaminated soil with 85Sr was used. Seeds were inoculated with a mixture of AMF at sowing, the second, control series was without application of AMF.

Comparison of pencil-type ionization chamber calibration results and methods between dosimetry laboratories.

A comparison of calibration results and procedures in terms of air kerma length product, PKL, and air kerma, K, was conducted between eight dosimetry laboratories. A pencil-type ionization chamber (IC), generally used for computed tomography dose measurements, was calibrated according to three calibration methods, while its residual signal and other characteristics (sensitivity profile, active length) were assessed. The results showed that the "partial irradiation method" is the preferred method for the pencil-type IC calibration in terms of PKL and it could be applied by the calibration laboratories successfully.

D-IMRT verification with a 2D pixel ionization chamber: dosimetric and clinical results in head and neck cancer.

Dynamic intensity-modulated radiotherapy (D-IMRT) using the sliding-window technique is currently applied for selected treatments of head and neck cancer at Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment of Candiolo (Turin, Italy). In the present work, a PiXel-segmented ionization Chamber (PXC) has been used for the verification of 19 fields used for four different head and neck cancers. The device consists of a 32x32 matrix of 1024 parallel-plate ionization chambers arranged in a square of 24x24 cm2 area.