Software Tool for Development of Personalized Computational Phantoms of Pregnant Patient in Computational Dosimetry Applications

When pregnant patients undergo diagnostic and therapeutic radiological procedures, the unborn child is exposed to an increased risk due to the use of ionizing radiation; therefore, the fetal dose must be estimated and optimized. Tools and methods routinely used for fetal dose estimation lack better personalization of patients. To address this, we developed a software tool for creating phantoms at different pregnancy stages and with varying patient anatomies to further personalize fetal dose estimation using measurements and Monte Carlo simulations. The tool is developed and incorporated into 3DSlicer as a plugin. Phantoms are created based on a real patient phantom, Tena, and physiological data for use in radiological protection. Phantoms are developed with only soft, lung, and bone tissue substitutes, represented for the mother and unborn child. This enables the construction of segmented voxel models as well as mesh models (with the ability to export geometries to DICOM format) of the anatomical structures of pregnant women. Additionally, it allows real patient image registration to enable better personalization of the phantom. The tool can help decrease uncertainty in fetal dose estimation, as well as simplify and accelerate the process of fetal dose estimation. It is released publicly to enable further research.