Radiation Doses to Patient and Risk Estimates in Chest Examinations

Full text: This paper examines the evolution of the chest examinations (traditional fluoroscopy, radiography, mass chest miniature radiography) over 25 years period (1970-1995), their contribution to the effective dose and the number of cases of fatal cancers. A significant decreasing trend is noticed for fluoroscopy and mass chest miniature examinations during 1970-1995 period. The number of chest radiographs increased from 5.9%/1970 and 5.3%/1980 to 9.2%/1990 and 20.6%/1995. Our study shows that organ doses from the mass chest miniature radiography are about 5 to 10 times higher than doses from the large film technique. The effective dose of the chest examinations was found to be 0.5494 mSv, contributing 63.4% of the total effective dose from X-ray examinations. By using the risk factors for these examinations, the risk was estimated to be 5.2 excessive number cases per year from the chest procedures. High doses are delivered in fluoroscopy with conventional equipment. This does not mean that fluoroscopy is an unfavourable procedure even from the restricted view of dose limitation since with modern image intensifiers low doses can be achieved. The mass chest radiography contributes relatively little to the improvement of discovery of new asymptomatic cases. The introduction of our quality assurance program to diagnostic radiology is expected to decrease more the number of the traditional fluoroscopy and the mass chest miniature radiography in Cluj county. (author)