Survey of computed tomography doses and establishment of national diagnostic reference levels in the Republic of Belarus.

Computed tomography dose index (CTDI) was measured on eight CT scanners at seven public hospitals in the Republic of Belarus. The effective dose was calculated using normalised values of effective dose per dose-length product (DLP) over various body regions. Considerable variations of the dose values were observed. Mean effective doses amounted to 1.4 +/- 0.4 mSv for brain, 2.6 +/- 1.0 mSv for neck, 6.9 +/- 2.2 mSv for thorax, 7.0 +/- 2.3 mSv for abdomen and 8.8 +/- 3.2 mSv for pelvis. Diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) were proposed by calculating the third quartiles of dose value distributions (body region/volume CTDI, mGy/DLP, mGy cm): brain/60/730, neck/55/640, thorax/20/500, abdomen/25/600 and pelvis/25/490. It is evident that the protocols need to be optimised on some of the CT scanners, in view of the fact that these are the first formulated DRLs for the Republic of Belarus.