Survey of patient doses in paediatric chest radiography. Part 2

The purpose of this work is to study the radiography technique and patient doses for the most common paediatric X-ray examination - chest radiography and to explore the factors affecting patient dose. 269 paediatric chest X-ray examinations (AP and PA projection) for children were included for patients between 0 to 15 years. Four age groups: <1 month, 1-12 months 1-4 years, 5 - 9 years and 10-15 years, were chosen for the analysis. The patient dose was measured in terms of kerma-area product (PM) and entrance air kerma (K). Radiation risk assessment was done in terms of organ dose (DT) and effective dose (£), using PCXMC. No correlation was found between the values of Ke and the exposure parameters because of the empirical choice of the used radiography technique, which is not in accordance with the size of the patient. The obtained values for Ke, PKA, organ and effective doses for chest radiography for three of the X-ray units are higher than those received by similar studies in other countries. It was found 5 times difference between the results for effective dose in the current study than the results in other studies for children aged between 1 and 4 years