Review of medical exposure dose in Indonesia based on general radiography technology

Abstract

General Radiography is a type of x-ray modality that is used widely for diagnostic purposes in Indonesia. There are three types of imaging systems in General Radiography technology in its development, namely Film, Computed Radiography (CR), and Digital Radiography (DR). In this research, an analysis was made related to comparing the three imaging systems for the Chest PA procedure in Indonesia. Comparing the radiation doses of each technology with the Diagnostic Reference Level in Indonesia (IDRL) has been done. Data collection was carried out using the Si-INTAN application from January 1st, 2019, to December 31st, 2019. The analysis was carried out statistically through a t-test to obtain conclusions about each technology’s different radiation doses. Comparisons with IDRL are based on the value of Q3 (75 percentiles) radiation doses distribution for each technology. The research results showed that CR technology gave the highest dose for the Chest PA examination, which was 0.27 mGy, while DR gave the lowest dose, which was 0.11 mGy. Comparison with IDRL showed that there were doses that exceed IDRL for CR technology, whereas Film and DR technology has no dose data that exceed IDRL. This condition was influenced by an extensive dynamic range on the CR modality that allows overexposure.