Skin and gonadal dose reduction during hip radiography of the bull

Radiology is being used to an increasing extent in the clinical diagnosis of hip lameness in bulls. Consequent gonadal doses may have important implications in later breeding programmes. Skin and gonadal doses were recorded during hip radiography of 18 bulls. An additional 0.13 mm copper filtration reduced skin dose by more than one third, but had no effect on gonadal dose. The average radiation dose to the gonads was approximately halved by completely surrounding the scrotum with lead sheeting 0.95 mm in thickness. (author)