To assess radiation dose and image quality of our pediatric 16-slice CT protocols and to compare them with published standards.

For 540 weight-based pediatric 16-slice CT examinations in six anatomic regions, CTDI(vol), DLP, effective dose, and image noise were determined. Two radiologists evaluated the visual quality of CT images by consensus. We analyzed the relationship of CTDI(vol) and image noise with body diameter. Our results were compared with published data.

The average CTDI(vol) (mGy), DLP (mGy. cm), effective dose (mSv), and image noise (HU) were as follows: 4.1/125.5/1.6/16.2 for chest CT, 3.3/54.2/1.2/13.7 for heart CT, 5.8/256.6/3.8/13.0 for abdomen-pelvis CT, 6.8/318.7/5.9/12.0 for dynamic abdomen CT, 3.5/86.2/0.35/7.9 for neck CT and 25.4/368.0/1.6/3.7 for brain CT, respectively. All CT images were diagnostic upon visual analysis. The CTDI(vol) and image noise were proportional to body diameter. Our dose parameters were comparable to the first quartile of the cited German survey, whereas image noise in our study was similar to published data.

Our pediatric CT dose is at the lower end of published standards and our image noise can be used as a target noise for each protocol in developing better pediatric multi-slice CT protocols.