Patient dose measurement and dose reduction in chest radiography

Abstract

Investigations presented in this paper represent the first estimation of patient doses in chest radiography in Montenegro. In the initial stage of our study, we measured the entrance surface air kerma and kerma area product for chest radiography in five major health institutions in the country. A total of 214 patients were observed. We reported the mean value, minimum and third quartile values, as well as maximum values of surface air kerma and kerma area product of patient doses. In the second stage, the possibilities for dose reduction were investigated. Mean kerma area product values were 0.8 ? 0.5 Gycm2 for the posterior-anterior projection and 1.6 ? 0.9 Gycm2 for the lateral projection. The max/min ratio for the entrance surface air kerma was found to be 53 for the posterior-anterior projection and 88 for the lateral projection. Comparing the results obtained in Montenegro with results from other countries, we concluded that patient doses in our medical centres are significantly higher. Changes in exposure parameters and increased filtration contributed to a dose reduction of up to 36% for posterior-anterior chest examinations. The variability of the estimated dose values points to a significant space for dose reduction throughout the process of radiological practice optimisation.

Performance Characteristics of Radiographic equipment in Selected Healthcare Institutions in Southwest Nigeria

“…In addition, C1 equipment has the highest filtration value compared to equipment in other centers. Increasing filtration results in a reduction of dose up to a factor of 3 [32]. For C3, the high dose might be attributed to the higher mAs value.…”

Extra radiation dose of lungs in male examinees during cardiac computed tomography

“…Geleijns et al utilized the Philips Tomoscan LX CT with 120 kV and 333 mAs, for chest ex am i na tion with a Pb thick ness of 10 mm. The re search ers in serted TLD-100 into the Rando phan tom with out con sid er ing the re la tion ship be tween D lung and the body-weights of the examinee, yield ing a D lung of ap prox i mately 44 mSv [16,17].…”

“…Fujii et al uti lized 32 photodiode do sim e ters that were em bed ded within anthro po mor phic phan toms of six-year-old chil dren (20 kg, 115 cm) and adults (61 kg, 170 cm). In rou tine adult chest CT, D lung val ues ranged from 11.1 to 25.8 mSv and in rou tine pe di at ric chest CT, D lung val ues ranged from 2.2 to 10.6 mSv [5,16].…”

Patient radiation dose assessment system for diagnostic nuclear medicine procedures: Implementation and first results

“…Sim i lar to dose as sess ment in di ag nos tic ra di ology [7,8], dose data for the re spec tive di ag nos tic nuclear med i cine pro ce dure can be used to op ti mize proce dure ac cord ing to the as low as di ag nos ti cally ac cept able (ALADA) prin ci ple, to es ti mate pa tient radi a tion risk, to plan and im prove ra di a tion safety, to com ply with the pro posed dose lim its and to align local prac tice with na tional and in ter na tional guide lines.…”