Abstract

Automatic Exposure Control is a key tool in computed tomography for optimizing medical exposure. This study proposed a technological management methodology to verify the operation of automatic exposure control using two phatoms, considering regional environmental conditions. Two Philips scanners, models Incisive and iCT, were evaluated using three standard clinical protocols (abdomen, cervical, and thorax) and two types of phantoms: one composed of eleven elliptical sections and another commonly used in dosimetric testing. Three technical tests were proposed and developed. The first test enabled the estimation of dose reduction through indicators such as the volumetric dose index and the size-specific dose estimate. The second test employed an ionization chamber to measure the variation of these indicators across different sections of the phantoms. The third test compared the administered dose and image noise levels in axial slice acquisitions. The results indicated that both the dose reduction index and the directly measured dose are efficient alternative descriptors to reflect the response of automatic exposure control in both phantoms, while the third test contributes to its verification and characterization. The proposed methodology proved effective, facilitating the availability of tools to verify these systems, assess their performance, and offering the capacity to evaluate their impact across different clinical protocols ultimately supporting the optimization of medical exposure in our region.