Diagnostic x-ray in use in federal medical centre, case study Makurdi metropolis

Every year more than two thousand patients go for routine medical check-up at the Federal Medical Centre using diagnostic x-rays. This paper is based on a study to determine the entrance surface doses per radiograph of 108 patients that had diagnostic examinations at the Federal Medical Centre Makurdi. The examinations considered in this study are chest x-ray examinations, abdomen, skull and other extremities, for both adults and children. The results show that the mean entrance surface doses of PA chest x-ray for female range between 237-275μGy, for male is between 1183-297μGy, and for children range between 47-237μGy. The AP chest x-ray for female range between 1943-3440μGy, for male is between 1583-3484μGy and for children it ranges between 177-451μGy. The PA examination of the skull for adult female ranged between 117-787μGy, for male it ranged between 117-532μGy and children from 472-948μGy. Also for the AP examination for skull the adult female mean entrance surface doses range from 129-798μGy, for the male it range from 145-178μGy and for children 138-650μGy. The AP abdomen for adult female produces a mean entrance surface doses range between 620-682μGy, for the male is between 105-930μGy, and children it range between 144-398μGy. In the case of extremities AP examination are between the range of 173-468μGy for adult female, 300-595μGy for adult male and between 254-887μGy for the children. In the case of extremities PA examination mean entrance surface doses are between the range of 145-517μGy for adult female, 363-517μGy for adult male and between 130-566μGy for the children. The data shows that the entrance surface doses due to the x-ray examination for adult and children are within the ICRP guidance levels. These guidance levels of dose for diagnostic radiography for a typical adult patient are 10 mGy for AP abdomen, 0.4 mGy PA chest, 7 mGy for AP chest and 5 mGy for PA skull