Week 13 - Entry 2

 Radiation Exposure in Adults

Introduction

    Almost everyone has had an xray taken at some point in their lives. It is a fairly common procedure that is performed for a variety of reasons. Most people also know that high levels of radiation are detrimental to human health, and in high enough amounts can cause cancers or death. Because of this, many people are nervous to get any kind of radiographic imaging done, but most imaging procedures involving radiation do not expose adults to nearly as much radiation as one might believe. 

Measuring Radiation

The standard unit of radiation used in healthcare facilities is the millisievert (mSv), also called effective dose. To better put this unit into perspective, it is commonly compared to naturally occurring background radiation that everyone is exposed to simply by existing on the Earth. The average person in the United States is exposed to about 3mSv per year from natural background radiation. 

Abdominal Region

• CT scan of abdomen and pelvis = 7.7 mSv
• CT colonoscopy = 6 mSv
• Intravenous Urography = 3mSv
• Barium enema = 6 mSv
• Upper GI study with Barium = 6 mSv

Bone

• Lumbar spine = 1.4 mSv
• Extremity xray = less than 0.001 mSv

Central Nervous System

• CT scan of brain = 1.6 mSv
• CT scan of head and neck = 1.2 mSv
• CT scan of spine = 8.8 mSv

Chest

• CT scan of chest = 6.1 mSv
• CT scan for lung cancer screening = 1.5 mSv
• Chest xray = 0.1 mSv

Dental

• Dental xray = 0.005 mSv
• Panoramic xray = 0.025 mSv
• Cone Beam CT = 0.18 mSv

Women's Imaging

• Bone densitometry = 0.001 mSv
• Digital mammography = 0.21 mSv
• Digital breast tomosynthesis = 0.27 mSv