A Survey of Organ Equivalent and Effective Doses from Diagnostic Radiology Procedures

Abstract

The quantification of radiation risks associated with radiological examinations has been a subject of interest with the increased use of X-rays. Effective dose, which is a risk-weighted measure of radiation to organs in the body associated with radiological examination, is considered a good indicator of radiological risk. We have therefore investigated patient effective doses from radiological examinations. Organ and effective doses were estimated for 94 patients who underwent computed tomography examinations and for 338 patients who had conventional radiography examinations. The OrgDose (version 2) program was used for the estimation of effective doses. The tube potential ranges: 57 kVp to 138 kVp depending on the examination and patient size. The entrance surface doses have a wide range even for the same examination: 0.44–10.31 mGy (abdomen) and 0.66–16.08 mGy (lumbar spine) and the corresponding effective dose ranges 0.025–0.77 mSv and 0.025–0.95 mSv respectively. Effective dose for adult abdomen-pelvic CT examinations ranges 5.4–19.8 mSv with a mean of 13.6 mSv and for pediatrics ranges 2.1–5.5 mSv with a mean of 2.7 mSv. The mean effective dose for adult chest and head CT examinations are 7.9 and 1.8 mSv respectively and for pediatrics are 1.7 and 1.1 mSv.

Cumulative Radiation Dose and Cancer Risk Estimation in Common Diagnostic Radiology Procedures

“…It should be noted that the mean ESD of different organs reported in all the other countries shows a wide range and reflects a large standard deviation. Compared to the other countries, the calculated ESDs in this study were greater than that reported in Canada (25), Serbia (26) and Serbia (28). The use of a suitable radiographic technique, with appropriate xray tube voltages and sufficient beam filtration is the probable reason for the low doses obtained in these countries in comparison with the others (21).…”

Assessment of Organ Dose by Direct and Indirect Measurements for a Wide Bore X-Ray Computed Tomography Unit That Used in Radiotherapy

“…The another way to assess organ doses as mentioned above is indirect method through measurement of CT dose indexes (CTDI) and published conventional factors obtained from Monte Carlo simulation and mathematical phantoms [21] [28]- [33]. Generally, the estimation of organ doses for CT procedures requires the user to supply CTDI 100 air, tube current (mA), tube rotation time(s), and pitch values for running simulation programs [34]. In practice, a CTDI can be measured using a pencil ionization chamber with an active length of 100 mm so CTDI 100 expressed in terms of absorbed dose to air (mGy).…”

“…Until now various MC data based programs like ImPACT [42], Org Dose [34], CT-EXPO [43] etc. were produced for calculating patient dose in CT applications.…”

Study of Common Requested Radiographs and Relative Exposure Dose in Qassim State

“…The variation of exposure dose have been noted by many scholars [23][24][25][26] even among same aged patients and size, which indicates the influence of other parameters affecting the general exposure dose. However the data also revealed that: the ESD for the requested cases (abdomen, skull and the chest radiographs) have been increased following the aging in a linear significant correlation (R 2 = 0.9) that could be fitted to equation of the form: y = 0.2119x + 0.9714, y = 0.1475x + 0.865 and y = 0.0356x + 0.0536 respectively; where x refers to the age in years and y refers to ESD in mGy as shown in Figure (6).…”