A chest x-ray is the most commonly used modality for detecting cardiomegaly, and the cardiothoracic ratio (CTR) has been used as an important tool for estimating the heart size. The main aims of the present study were to determine the distribution of cardiomegaly in normal adults in Saudi Arabia and to evaluate the correlation between the presence of cardiomegaly and age. Data was collected from King Abdulaziz Hospital, Jeddah. A conventional x-ray machine was used for obtaining the x-rays, and CTR was calculated for each patient. Our study included 59 participants (24 females, 40.7%; 35 males, 59.3%) who were examined by posteroanterior (PA) chest x-rays; their age range was 15-79 years. Descriptive analyze were performed using SPSS. The results of our study showed that 38 (64.4%) patients were normal, while 21 (35.6%) patients had cardiomegaly. Of the patients with cardiomegaly, 14 were males (66.7%) and 7 were females (33.3%). The age distribution of these patients was as follows: 15-25 years, 2 patients; 26-36 years, 3 patients; 37-47 years, 5 patients; 48-58 years, 5 patients; 59-69 years, 4 patients; and 59-69 years, 2 patients. The results revealed that cardiomegaly occurs more commonly in males than in females and is particularly observed in the middle-aged group.
Computed tomography (CT) has had a massive impact on diagnostic radiology over the past few decades. Serious concerns exist because of the increase in the effective radiation dose associated with CT scans, which could pose significant health risks. In CT, the effective dose can be estimated by Monte Carlo simulations. The aim of the study was to estimate and compare the effective doses for CT from organ dose-based calculations using the tissue weighting factors of the International Commission on Radiological Protection publications (ICRP 60, 103), Monte Carlo CT-Expo v2.6, and dose-length product (DLP)-based estimates. For 165 CT scans, the effective doses (Ed) of the most common routine radiological investigations were assessed. There were 112 male patients (68%) and 53 female patients (32%). When compared to organ dose-based estimates, the DLP-based estimates of the effective dose produced by applying ICRP 60 coefficients were less than 55–57% (head) and more than 18.1% (chest) and 20% (abdomen). The ICRP 103 values of the Ed were less than 79% (head) and more than 17% (chest), and they changed randomly with the tissue weighting factors for the abdomen. For Monte Carlo CT-Expo, the Ed values were lower by 54% (head), 6% (abdomen), and more than 2% (chest) compared to organ dose-based estimates. Effective doses calculated using the tissue-weighting factors of ICRP 103 values comparable to ICRP 60 differ greatly by an average of 2.3, 2.9, and 4.5 mSv for the head, chest, and abdomen, respectively. In conclusion, all estimates of Ed are subject to the biases inflicted by the assumptions in the methods used; therefore, no significant agreement should be expected. The reason for evaluating ICRP 60 is to make a point that ICRP’s update is indeed more accurate. The variability associated with the use of various methodologies to estimate and compare the effective dose Ed in CT scans was shown to be significant in this study.
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