Computed tomography (CT) scanning is recognised as a high-radiation dose modality and estimated to be 17 % of the radiological procedure and responsible for 70 % of medical radiation exposure. Although diagnostic X rays provide great benefits, their use involves some risk for developing cancer. The objectives of this study are to estimate radiation doses during chest, abdomen and pelvis CT. A total of 51 patients were examined for the evaluation of metastasis of a diagnosed primary tumour during 4 months. A calibrated CT machine from Siemens 64 slice was used. The mean age was 48.0 ± 18.6 y. The mean patient weight was 73.8 ± 16.1 kg. The mean dose-length product was 1493.8 ± 392.1 mGy cm, Volume CT dose index (CTDI vol) was 22.94 ± 5.64 mGy and the mean effective dose was 22.4 ± 5.9 mSv per procedure. The radiation dose per procedure was higher as compared with previous studies. Therefore, the optimisation of patient's radiation doses is required in order to reduce the radiation risk.

Background: Whole-body computed tomography (WBCT) is one of the standard non-invasive tests for trauma patients, to avoid the overuse of the WBCT and unnecessary radiation to the patients, a combination of evidence-based indications, approved guidelines and clinical decisions should be used.This study was done to emphasize on limitation of unnecessary WBCT following international or local criteria along with clinical assessment and decision without compromising the patient's safety. Methodology:This study was performed in King Fahad Hospital-Emergency Department in Albaha region in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the study was done in the period from January 2020 to December 2020, the study population is polytrauma patients of the age of 18 years old and above, it is a descriptive, retrospective database analysis of 233 patients diagnosed with polytrauma in the emergency department, all patients were received by emergency physicians and trauma team members, where they received their initial management and stabilized then sent to the Radiology department for WBCT according to the order by senior ED physician or on-call surgeon who is a member of the trauma team, Informed consent was taken according to the hospital protocol.Results: Whole-body CT was carried out on 233 polytrauma patients arriving at the emergency department, the outcome of the WBCT was n ≈ 70 (30%) were reported as n ≈ 87 (37.3%) they have a single organ involved in trauma and n ≈ 76 (32.7%) the reports came with multiple organs (more than 1) involved in trauma. Conclusion:This study showed slight overuse of WBCT in our facility, 30% of the studies were reported.The combination of the senior clinical staff application of appropriate local or international evidence-based criteria for performing WBCT will lead to avoiding a good number of unnecessary WBCT, radiation exposure, and side effects of contrast materials besides reducing the costs for the health services.