Development And Application Of Cloud-based Software VirtualDose-IR For Evaluating Radiation Doses Of Interventional Radiology Patients

With the development and advancement of medical imaging technologies,Interventional Radiology(IR)has been increasingly applied to the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases.IR is known for its good efficacy and noninvasiveness.However,the X-ray that is used in interventional imaging equipment can cause radiation doses in patients and medical staff.There are many reports about patients suffering from radiation injuries(e.g.skin burn)after interventional procedures.To help solve this radiation safety problem,researchers have come up several methods to evaluate organ doses for IR patients.Unfortunately,those methods have certain limitations.This thesis describes our work to develop a software tool,called VirtualDose-IR,which can be used to evaluate organ doses for patients who underwent IR procedures.VirtualDose-IR was designed to be user-friendly and easy to use,and can be applied to different interventional procedures for various patients.VirtualDose-IR was based on an innovative concept called "Software as a Service(SaaS)".At the beginning,Monte Carlo method was used to simulate IR procedure and to calculate radiation doses under different conditions.Those data were then stored into a database.VirtualDose-IR was developed with ASP.NET MVC framework,allowing users to access the software via a web browser instead of dealing with local software management.After setting certain radiation parameters and anatomical region,users can receive organ dose report instantly.Afterward,VirtualDose-IR was applied to organ dose assessment.The software was tested in three specific IR cases.Results were compared with findings by others,indicating that VirtualDose-IR is reliable and easy to use.It was also shown that the report was able to alert certain procedures that had significant impact on organ doses.The test also revealed that the absorbed dose was relatively high when an organ was located within the radiation field,while for organs out of radiation field the absorbed dose was much lower.This and other findings suggest that medical staff should pay attention to avoiding or reducing direct irradiation of sensitive organs or tissues of the patient.The test also showed that skin doses were relatively high,suggesting that it is also necessary to include the skin in the consideration of patient radiation protection.