Impact of quality control on radiation doses received by patients undergoing abdomen X-ray examination in ten hospitals

ABSTRACT

The X-ray machines used for radiodiagnosis should meet certain quality assurance [QA] programmes. These are necessary to have good quality radiographs at reasonably low exposure to patients. Dose reduction methods in abdomen X-ray examination were carried out in 10 hospitals in Tehran. This paper presents the work, which was implemented on 200 patients and evaluated using the entrance skin dose [ESD] in the Anterior-Posterior [AP] abdomen projection measured directly at the center of the X-ray field. In addition, the machine room, and dark room parameters, as well as work practices and repeat rates were studied. The quality control [QC] parameters and the ESD were evaluated utilizing an anthropologic phantom to define the optimal exposure condition at all hospitals before and after QC. Results show that after using the QC parameters and optimization of the exposure condition s, the mean of mAs and ESD can be decrease d by 62% and 65% respectively. The quality of the radiograph s generally increased. The reported method is easily implemented in any clinical situation where optimization of abdomen radiography is necessary