• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.897-904
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to compare the difference in dose and image quality when applying the diagnostic reference level (DRL) test conditions for head radiography in a digital radiation environment and the test conditions currently applied in clinical practice. I would like to review the conditions of radiographic examination. In this study, the head model phantom was targeted, and the investigation conditions were divided into clinical conditions (Clinic), DRL value (DRL₇₅), and DRL average value (DRL_mean). For dose, Enterance surface dose (ESD) was measured, and for image quality, signal-to-noise ratio and contrast-to-noise ratio were measured and analyzed for comparison. The average values of skull anterior posterior(AP) ESD according to the changes in test conditions were Clinic 1214.03±4.21 µGy, DRL₇₅ 3017.83±8.14 µGy, DRL_mean 2283.50±7.09 µGy, and skull lateral (Lat). The average value of ESD was statistically significant with Clinic 762.79±3.54 µGy, DRL₇₅ 2168.57±10.83 µGy, and DRL_mean 1654.43±6.48 µGy (p<0.01). The average values of SNR and CNR measured in the orbital, maxillary sinus, frontal sinus, and sella turcica were statistically significant (p<0.01). As a result of this study, compared to DRL, the conditions used in clinical practice showed lower dose levels of about 58% for AP and about 70% for Lat., and there was no qualitative difference in terms of image quality. Through this study, it is necessary to consider a new diagnostic reference level suitable for the digital radiation environment, and it is considered that the dose should be reduced accordingly.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.387-392
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• 2017

When an infant has visited a hospital due to skull fracture, the rupture of a blood vessel, or skin wounds on the head resulted from an incident, accident, traffic accident, or disease, he/she becomes to undergo anterior/posterior and lateral skull imaging, which is a head test at the department of radiology. In the head test, if the adult skull imaging grid is applied to the imaging, the secondary radiation will be removed to enhance the contrast of the image. However, among the radiation exposure conditions, the tube voltage should be enhanced by 8~10 kVp leading to an increase in the patient exposure. The present study was conducted under assumption that if the same images can be obtained from infant skull imaging without using the skull imaging grid, the exposure dose will be reduced and the artifacts due to grid cut off can be prevented. The researcher measured the radiation dosage using a radiation meter and conducted the subjective evaluation (ROC, receiver operating characteristic) among medical image evaluation methods. Based on the results, when the images were taken without using the grid, the exposure dose was reduced by 0.019 mGy in the anterior/posterior imaging and by 0.02 mGy in the lateral imaging and the image evaluation score was higher by 4 points. In conclusion, if the images of the skulls of infants that visited the hospital are taken with out using the grid, the exposure dose can be reduced, the image artifacts due to grid cut off can be prevented, and the lifespan of the X-ray tube will be extended.