The influence of calculated CT X-ray spectra on organ absorbed dose to a human phantom

We have evaluated the utilization of five X-ray spectra codes for Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of computed tomography (CT) examinations. Four codes (Xcomp5r, X-raytbc, X-rayb&m and Srs-78) are semi-empiricals and one is based on MC methods (EGSnrc/BEAM Monte Carlo code). The X-ray spectra calculated by the semi-empirical codes were compared with the X-ray spectrum calculated by the EGSnrc/BEAM MC code. The absorbed doses to each organ or tissue were also compared. The calculated doses, and its respective organs, for which occurs the greatest disagreement, as well as the calculated doses for the testes and red bone marrow (two important organs used for calculating effective dose) were presented. The results obtained in this work are in good agreement with those obtained by Ay [M.R. Ay, S. Sarkar, M. Shahriari, D. Sardari, H. Zaidi, Assessment of different computational models for generation of X-ray spectra in diagnostic radiology and mammography, Med. Phys. 32 (2005) 1660], mainly for the bremsstrahlung distribution. Also, it was noted that the total characteristic X-rays produced by the EGSnrc/BEAM MC code increases with the increase of voltage more intensely than with the Xcomp5r, X-raytbc and Srs-78 codes. Comparison between the absorbed dose to each organ or tissue showed that, for X-ray spectra with additional filtration, the code based on Tucker et al. is in agreement with EGSnrc/BEAM MC code. But, for X-ray spectra without additional filtration the code based on Tucker et al. model presented the strong disagreement with EGSnrc/BEAM MC code.