Pediatric Patients’ Radiation Dose Assessment During Routine Chest X-ray Procedure in Some Selected Centres in Kebbi State

Abstract

Pediatric X-ray examination is a problematic procedure from the point of view of the amount of radiation delivered. The children have a higher potential of developing cancer when compared with adults receiving same amount of radiation. The longer life span in children gives room for any toxic effects of radiation dose to appear. The present study aimed at assessing the entrance skin dose (ESD) of children undergoing routine chest x-ray at Koko general hospital and Federal Medical Centre Birnin Kebbi. A total of 75 patients were enrolled in this study. ESD was assessed for posterio-anterior (PA) chest projections. In each projection, the patient’s data (such as Sex & Age) and exposure factors were collected prospectively on a data collection form designed. An indirect method was employed to determine ESD for each patient. The mean ESD results obtained at the age of 0-10 years in this research were found to be 1.41mGy & 0.42 mGy, and 1.78 mGy & 0.63mGy at the age of 10-16 years for Koko and FMC respectively. Similarly, reference dose levels obtained were found to be 1.60 & 0.48 for 0-10 years and 1.68 & 0.75 for 10-16 years respectively for Koko and FMC. The mean ESD Value of Koko is greatly high compared to FMC results. The results presented in this research were remarkably higher than those reported in the literature except for a few studies that recorded higher value than the result reported in this study with factor of 4.09 mGy & 5.24 mGy for 10-16 years and 1.99mGy & 2.98 mGy for 0-10 years. The Diagnostic Reference Levels were below the value reported in the literature for both age groups. Koko Centre recorded the highest value of DRLs and ESD, this may likely occur as a result of variations of exposure factors.