Estimation of Patient Radiation Dose During Digital Radiography Examinations

Abstract

Diagnostic X-rays are useful in detecting abnormalities within the body, the digital x- ray is the advance modality of x-ray machines. Most clinical examination of the radiological field only take in account the image quality without taking care about dose receive by the patient .These study aimed to estimate the entrance skin doses and effective doses for adult patients underwent chest digital x-ray PA and lumbar spine (AP,LAT) examination using mathematical relation between output and entrance skin dose(ESD). The data was collected in two hospitals (MMC & RICK) in Khartoum state with average load 30,20 case per day respectively. 82 patients were examined in this study, 42 for chest and 40 for lumber AP&LAT, the data collected was include height, weight, age of patients, kilovoltage (kVp) , tube current (mAs), and focus to skin distance (FSD) settings. These data was used to calculate ESD and effective doses (ED ). The mean ESD and ED of three examinations were (0.216±0.072),(3.869±1.09) and (4.695±1.07)mGy and mean ED were(0.036), (0.53) and (0.194) mSv for chest PA, lumber spine AP, and LAT respectively. These values were compared with those of published works and international established diagnostic reference levels. The variation of ESD was found to be 53% lower while ED was found to be 47% higher compared with values of (UNSCEAR 2000) these refer to techniques used for the examinations studied, the importance of establishing a national quality assurance program and examination protocols to ensure that patient doses are kept as Low as possible..