Assessment of Entrance Skin Dose and Organ Dose of Radiation in Patients Receiving Chest X-ray Using PCXMC Program, version 2.0

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess the radiation absorption when patients received posterior- anterior chest X-ray. The PCXMC or so-called the PC-based Monte Carlo program for calculation patient doses in medical X-ray examinations was applied in the analysis. The study was conducted at 4 hospitals in Surat Thani province and 2 hospitals in Nakhon Si Thammarat during April – June 2012 on 54 patients. It was found that with the routine chest X-ray, the entrance surface skin dose ranged from 0.10 to 0.63 milligray (mGy) with the mean of 0.33 mGy. The organ doses were found to be 0.0121-0.0278 mGy for the chest, 0.0035-0.0133 mGy for gall bladder, 0.0079-0.0497 mGy for Kidneys, 0.0210-0.0488 mGy for liver, 0.0567-0.1480 mGy for lungs, 0.0240-0.0595 mGy for esophagus, 0.0198-0.0520 mGy for pancreas, 0.0088-0.02255 mGy for stomach, and 0.0095-0.0258 mGy for thyroid. The mean of effective dose in the whole body was 0.0075 millisievert (mSv). Based on this study, the authors recommended that PCXMC could be used to estimate organ dose of radiation from x-ray and to monitor the cumulative level of exposure not to exceed 20 mSv per year.