Emergency Medicine: Open Access
Open Access
ISSN: 2165-7548
ISSN: 2165-7548
Audrey Wegst
Tanzania
Research Article
Cumulative Radiation Exposure from Medical Imaging in Two Hospital Systems
– Implications for Medical Record Portability
Author(s): Timothy B. Bullard, Jay L. Falk, Mark S. Smith, Audrey Wegst, David H. Roseman, James S. Jelinek, Mihail Stojanovski, Ashley Waplinger and Linda PapaTimothy B. Bullard, Jay L. Falk, Mark S. Smith, Audrey Wegst, David H. Roseman, James S. Jelinek, Mihail Stojanovski, Ashley Waplinger and Linda Papa
This study assessed the estimated cumulative effective ionizing radiation dose from diagnostic imaging studies performed on a sample of patients identified in two emergency departments (ED) from different hospital systems over 5 years. A random sample of patients was retrospectively identified from a cohort of patients receiving diagnostic imaging during their visit. All imaging diagnostic studies performed on the sample patients over a five year period were retrieved and assigned an effective radiation dose by a radiation physicist, using published reference tables. During the five year study period there were 13,387 radiological studies performed on 1,243 patients sampled from the two hospitals. The mean cumulative radiation dose per patient in milliseiverts (mSv) was 45.0 (SD ±71.4) (range 0.1-674.6) mSv. There were 150 patients (12%) exposed to over 100 mSv of ionizing radi.. View More»
DOI:
10.4172/2165-7548.1000211