Normalised Organ Doses for Paediatric X-Ray Examinations Calculated Using Monte Carlo Techniques

Author(s):

D Hart, D G Jones and B R Wall

Summary:

This computer data package provides estimates of organ doses and effective doses to paediatric patients undergoing diagnostic x-ray exposures. It contains the results of Monte Carlo calculations using five paediatric phantoms representing children aged 0, 1, 5, 10 and 15 years old. The conditions of exposure relevant to about 20 common radiographic views were modelled, including views of the head, neck, chest, abdomen, lumbar spine, pelvis and bladder.

Further details, including for an associated NRPB report, are given below.

Price:

£50.00 VAT

Postage UK: no charge; Europe: £5.00; rest of the world: £10.00.

Please add £8.00 if payment is not made in British Sterling drawn on a UK bank, to cover bank commission/conversion charges incurred by the HPA.Order 

Technical specification:

May be used on any standard IBM PC, AX, XT or true compatibles with MS-DOS 2.0 or above.

Further details

For each radiographic view, and each phantom, normalised doses are presented for 26 organs or tissues and 3 regions of the body (head, trunk and legs), along with the effective dose as defined by ICRP in 1990 and the effective dose equivalent as defined by ICRP in 1977. The data are provided for 72 x-ray spectra ranging from 50 kV to 120 kV peak applied potential and from 2 mm A1 to 0.2 mm Cu with 3 mm A1 total beam filtration. The doses are normalised to both unit entrance surface dose and unit dose-area product. The Monte Carlo calculations are discussed in more detail in a separate NRPB report.

Data for each series of calculations are provided as separate data files in compressed form on a pair of 3.5 inch microdisks for use with computers operating under PC/MS-DOS. The expanded data require 7 megabytes of hard disk space. Software is provided to expand the compressed data files but not for manipulation of the resulting Monte Carlo data. However, the report gives full details of the format of the normalised organ dose data and how they may be used.

Associated NRPB report

Hart, D, Jones, D G and Wall, B F. Coefficients for estimating effective doses from paediatric x-ray examinations. NRPB-R279 (1996).

Last reviewed: 20 May 2010