Surgivisio® and O-arm®O2 cone beam CT mobile systems for guidance of lumbar spine surgery: Comparison of patient radiation dose

Purpose: To compare patient radiation doses in cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) of two mobile systems used for navigation-assisted mini-invasive orthopedic surgery: O-arm (R) O2 and Surgivisio (R).& nbsp; Methods: The study focused on imaging of the spine. Thermoluminescent dosimeters were used to measure organs and effective doses (ED) during CBCT. An ionization-chamber and a solid-state sensor were used to measure the incident air-kerma (Ki) at the center of the CBCT field-of-view and Ki during 2D-imaging, respectively. The PCXMC software was used to calculate patient ED in 2D and CBCT configurations. The image quality in CBCT was evaluated with the CATPHAN phantom.& nbsp; Results: The experimental ED estimate for the low-dose 3D-modes was 2.41 and 0.35 mSv with O-arm (R) O2 (Low Dose 3D-small-abdomen) and Surgivisio (R) (3DSU-91 images), respectively. PCXMC results were consistent: 1.54 and 0.30 mSv. Organ doses were 5 to 12 times lower with Surgivisio (R). Ki at patient skin were comparable on lateral 2D-imaging (0.5 mGy), but lower with O-arm (R) O2 on anteroposterior (0.3 versus 0.9 mGy). Both systems show poor low contrast resolution and similar high contrast spatial resolution (7 line-pairs/cm).& nbsp; Conclusions: This study is the first to evaluate patient ED and organ doses with Surgivisio (R). A significant difference in organs doses was observed between the CBCT systems. The study demonstrates that Surgivisio (R) used on spine delivers approximately five to six times less patient ED, compared to O-arm (R) O2, in low dose 3D-modes. Doses in 2D-mode preceding CBCT were higher with Surgivisio (R), but negligible compared to CBCT doses under the experimental conditions tested.