Anthropomorphic Phantoms - Potential for More Studies and Training in Radiology

Abstract

Anthropomorphic phantoms are used for the assessment of image quality and to simulate a medical procedure. They can be likewise developed for training and teaching for all modalities of imaging. Phantoms built from tissue-equivalent materials provide a physical representation of the anatomy of the human body and attenuation characteristics, allowing researchers to calculate absorbed organ doses, improving treatments effectiveness and protecting healthy tissues. Nowadays, physical phantoms have been used as a comparison to computational models for validation of Monte Carlo codes, which are computational phantoms. The more complex the tissue is structured, the more difficult it gets to design the phantom. With the development of 3D printers, new phantoms can be built from medical imaging. However, current 3D printers do not use a wide variety of materials, so it is not possible yet to create phantoms for functional imaging. Studies must be performed to optimize current imaging techniques and elevate their accuracy, which would provide visual, practical, hands-on training of the medical staff, with real-world simulations, ideally patient-specific. This technological advance should be made with physical and computational phantoms in parallel since validation has a high value to the reliability of this scientific method. When it comes to radiation protection of patients and staff, new anthropomorphic phantoms could also provide data for new dosimetry and radiation protection studies, serving as a foundation for the progress of radiological safety throughout the world.

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