Evaluation of Patient Radiation Dose in Conventional and Computed Radiography

Abstract

The transition from conventional screen-film radiography (SFR) to computed radiography (CR) or digital radiography (DR) can involve an increase in patient radiation doses due to the wide dynamic range of the digital imaging systems, which allows overexposure with no adverse effect on image quality. The current study intends to measure and compare the radiation dose to adult patients during (i) chest X rays (CXR) (ii) lumbar spine (LS) and (iii) others using (i) (FSR), (ii) (CR) and (iii) (DR) and evaluate of patient doses in digital, conventional and computed radiography. Entrance surface doses (ESDs) were calculated from patient exposure parameters \sing Dos-Cal software for three imaging mo alities. A total of 202 patients were studied (115 CXR, 78 LS and 9 others). The mean ESDs were 1.49±0.15mGy for the AP/LS, 1.87±0.13mGy for LA/LS and 0.08±0.97mGy for the CXR in SFR type (A), 1.77±0.01mGy for the AP/LS, 4.27±0.04mGy for LA/LS and 0.07±0.02 mGy for the CXR in SFR type (B), 2.54±0.05 mGy for the AP/LS, 5.39±0.16mGy for LA/LS and 0.11±0.01 for the CXR in CR and 1.16±0.44 for the AP/LS, 1.72±0.45mGy for LA/LS, 0.06±0.04mGY for the CXR and 0.2±0.13mGy for other in DR. The radiation dose in this study showed wide differences in terms of dose, exposure factors and inter-examiners. AP LS patient dose in DR (16.67%) was lower than other two imaging modalities where SFR type (A) (21.41%) was lower than (B) (25.43%), CR (36.49) dose values were higher than the other two modalities. Lateral LS patient dose in DR (12.98%) was lower than other two imaging modalities where SFR type (A) (14.11%) were lower than (B) (32.23%) and, CR (40.68%) dose values were higher than the other two modalities. Chest patient dose in DR (18.75%) were lower than other two imaging modalities where SFR type (A) (25%), type B (21.88%) and CR (34.38%) dose values were higher than the other two modalities. LS patient dose values were lower than the majority of the previous studies in all modalities and so CXR doses were lower than previous studies. Radiation dose optimization is crucial for further dose reduction.