Radiation Safety in Children in Children’s Medical Center Hospital

Background: Diagnostic radiology studies in children harbor more radiation hazards than in adults due to their small size and higher cellular proliferation rate. Therefore, reducing the radiation burden to children should be top priority. Measurement of radiation dose is the first step to this goal. Nevertheless, we do not know whether the radiation of portable radiographs at our hospital meets the standards or not. Objectives: This study aims at measuring the primary and scattered radiation at different distances from patients. This eventually would help us to keep the radiation to minimum. Methods: This study was conducted on 84 patients from 4 different wards (U1-U2) in our hospital in 2017. After obtaining ethical approval from ethical committee and also written consent from parents, all patients who needed portable X-ray were included in our study. A thermo-luminescent dosimeter was placed on the patient’s chest to measure the entrance surface dose (ESD), while Geiger-Muller dosimeters located at one and two-meter distances from the X-ray tube used to scale the scattered radiation. Then, data were analyzed in SPSS 16. Results: The average ESD was 0.3873, 0.3867, 0.3700, and 0.4033 millisievert (mSv) in U1 to U4 respectively, whereas the scattered radiation doses measured as 0.00986, 0.00750, 0.01250, 0.1014 at one-meter and 0.00250, 0.00220, 0.00238, 0.00314 mSv at twometer distances. There was no significant difference in radiation dose between those units (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Radiation received by patients in this study was three to four times higher than the standard dose. Significant scattered radiation was also detected at one and two-meter distances. To reduce radiation, improvement of exposure protocols such as reducing mAs and using proper shielding is emphasized.