RESUMEN
Due to the widespread use of lateral cephalometric radiography especially in orthodontic therapy and orthognathic surgery, obtaining radiographs of high quality with the least amount of radiation exposure is of utmost importance. The aim of this study was to compare the absorbed dose of head and neck target organs in conventional and digital lateral cephalometric radiography. In this experimental study, RANDO phantom was used for absorbed dose estimation in thyroid, parotid, pituitary and submandibular glands, bone marrow and ocular lens. The phantom was exposed 60 times: 30 times with CRANEX Tome, Soredex and 30 times with CRANEX D, Soredex with standard exposure settings. TLD [GR-200] dosimeters were used to measure organ doses. A total of 69 TLDs were used with 9 TLDs for background radiation. T-test was used for statistical analysis. The mean absorbed dose of target organs was 0.04 +/- 0.005 mSv for conventional and 0.01 +/- 0.002 mSv for digital technique. The difference in absorbed dose in all target organs except for the thyroid gland [P=0.08] between the two techniques of conventional and digital was statistically significant. [P=0.01] $ Use of digital lateral cephalometric system causes a significant reduction in absorbed dose compared to the conventional film-screen system