Radiation Protection Dosimetry Advance Access originally published online on October 13, 2006
Radiation Protection Dosimetry 2007 123(3):402-408; doi:10.1093/rpd/ncl149
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TECHNICAL NOTES
Number of X-ray examinations performed on paediatric and geriatric patients compared with adult patients
1 University Institute of Radiation Physics (IRA-DUMSC), University of Lausanne, Grand-Pré 1, CH-1007 Lausanne, Switzerland
2 University Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP-DUMSC), University of Lausanne, Bugnon 17, CH-1005 Lausanne, Switzerland
* Corresponding author: abbas{at}aroua.com
Received April 20, 2006, amended August 28, 2006, accepted September 6, 2006
| Abstract |
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The age of the patient is of prime importance when assessing the radiological risk to patients due to medical X-ray exposures and the total detriment to the population due to radiodiagnostics. In order to take into account the age-specific radiosensitivity, three age groups are considered: children, adults and the elderly. In this work, the relative number of examinations carried out on paediatric and geriatric patients is established, compared with adult patients, for radiodiagnostics as a whole, for dental and medical radiology, for 8 radiological modalities as well as for 40 types of X-ray examinations. The relative numbers of X-ray examinations are determined based on the corresponding age distributions of patients and that of the general population. Two broad groups of X-ray examinations may be defined. Group A comprises conventional radiography, fluoroscopy and computed tomography; for this group a paediatric patient undergoes half the number of examinations as that of an adult, and a geriatric patient undergoes 2.5 times more. Group B comprises angiography and interventional procedures; for this group a paediatric patient undergoes a one-fourth of the number of examinations carried out on an adult, and a geriatric patient undergoes five times more.