Measurement of Radiation Dose and Risk Estimation in Paediatric Radiography

Abstract

Infants and children constitute 10% of the total number of radiological examinations Diagnostic radiology plays an important role in the assessment and treatment of the patients in the modern medicine. It is often necessary to perform a large number of radiographic examinations depending upon the infant's problems. Radiographic examination of children, especially neonates, attracts particular interest because of the increased opportunity for expression of delayed radiogenic cancers as a consequence of relative longer life expectancy. The yield of certain forms of radiation-induced cancer, particularly leukemia, appears to be some five times higher in children than in adults. Radiation dosimetry is well established for adults’ radiological examinations, but there are limited pediatric data available The current study intends to: Evaluate the radiation dose to 303 pediatric patients during: pediatric: CT, planar radiography and special investigation (intravenous urography (IVU), Barium studies, and maturating cystourethrography (MCU), and Barium studies) and estimate the risk of the aforementioned procedures. The data used in this Study was collected from five hospitals: Gafar Ibn Oaf pediatric hospital and Alribat teaching hospital, Royal care hospital, Alamal national hospital and Royal scan center. Khartoum, Sudan. Measurements of ESD using output parameters were carried out in a sample of 303 pediatric patients who underwent various radiological examinations The ESDs in this study were calculated using DoseCal software. For dose measurement using the software, the relationship between X-ray unit current time product (mAs) and the air kerma free in air was established at a reference point of 100 cm from tube focus for the range of tube potentials encountered in clinical practice. The X-ray tube outputs, in mGy (mAs), were measured using Unfors Xi dosimeter (Unfors Inc., Billdal, Sweden). Effective doses (E) were calculated using