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Typical Patient Exposures

For exposure to properly prescribed diagnostic and therapeutic sources, there is NO LIMIT. These exposures can be whatever is necessary based on your medical and dental needs. Some typical patient exposures are available below.

• Typical Exams and Exposures
• Nationwide Data on Two Common X-Ray Examinations
  • 1995 Nationwide Average Patient Exposure Abdomen X-Ray Exam Graph
  • 1995 Nationwide Average Exposure for Lumbar Spine X-Ray Exam Graph
• Whole Body CT Screening
• Contact Information

For comparison purposes:  The national average WHOLE-BODY or background radiation dose to each of us is about 360 millirem per year (200 of that is estimated to come from radon exposure) About 54 millirem is the AVERAGE received from all medical exposures. The occupational dose LIMIT to a radiation worker, such as a dental hygienist or assistant, medical x-ray technologist, radiologist, or therapy technologist is 5000 millirem per year. The established dose LIMIT to a member of the public from NON-medical and dental x-ray sources is 100 millirem per year.

Typical Exams and Exposures

Below is a list of representative exams and the skin entrance exposures associated with them.

• Dental bitewing 300 millirem (3 inch diameter area)
• Chest x-ray 20 millirem (14 x 17 inch area)
• Abdominal film 300 millirem (14 x 17)
• Lumbar spine 350 millirem (14 x 17)
• Extremity x-ray 30 millirem (8 x 10)
• Skull x-ray 100 millirem (8 x 10)
• Breast (mammogram) 175 millirads (glandular tissue dose)

Nationwide Data on Two Common X-Ray Examinations

The following two graphs will give you more detailed information than the short list above. In cooperation with the Food & Drug Administration, the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD) in Frankfort, KY, has published data from a nationwide sample of patient exposures for the abdominal x-ray exam and the lumbar spine exam. Washington State participated in this survey and contributed data to it. The graphs show increasing exposure on the horizontal axis and the percent of facilities whose patients receive that exposure on the vertical axis.

The majority of facilities obtain an abdominal radiograph by delivering an exposure to the patient of between 100 and 400 milliRoentgens. For the lumbar spine, the exposure tends to average between 200 and 500 milliRoentgens. Higher levels obviously are less desirable since the goal is to produce a quality diagnostic film with the least x-ray exposure. The variations across the nation are caused by several factors:

1. Speed of the film and screen used in the cassettes;
2. Quality of the film processing
3. Desire for a light or dark film
4. Technique factors chosen on the x-ray machine, specifically the kVp and the milliamp-seconds.

Unfortunately, the only one of these factors controlled by state regulation is item #2, quality of film processing. It is required that x-ray facilities meet technical standards in this area, but we continue to find high noncompliance. The violations are corrected of course, but there appears to be high recidivism.

Note that this data is from 1995, which might seem to be rather out-dated, but it is a relatively recent publication of CRCPD, and most of the values shown on the graph will not be very different even now.

Other exposure summaries such as this are available if you wish to obtain them. Please call us (1-800-299 XRAY) for a summary such as this or CRCPD (502 227 4543) for the full data reports. Reports are available for chest, pediatric chest, fluoroscopy, mammography, dental and CT.

1995 Nationwide Average Patient Exposure Abdomen X-Ray Exam Graph

1995 Nationwide Average Exposure for Lumbar Spine X-Ray Exam Graph

Contact Information

X-Ray Control Section
P.O. Box 47827
Olympia, WA 98504-7827

Phone (360)-236-3231
FAX (360)-236-2266

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Washington State Department of Health

Office of Radiation Protection                                       Physical Address:
P.O. Box 47827                                                            111 Israel Road SE, TC2
Olympia, Washington 98504-7827                                  Tumwater, Washington 98501
(360) 236-3300

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Last Update : 02/02/2007 08:59 AM