Estimation of the effective doses for radiography of the premature newborns performed on dedicated x-ray units.

Plain radiography still remains a modality of choice for the imaging of the newborn and prematurely newborn in the intensive care units. The common use of mobile X-ray units for the imaging of that categories of pediatric patients is associated with several difficulties, with the major issue being the poor ergonomics of the X-ray units and lack of dedicated pediatric protocols for the patients with abnormally low body mass. The aim of the current study was to compare the patient doses between the typical digital mobile X-ray unit and the prospective portable X-ray unit. The data on the anthropometric characteristics of prematurely born patients was collected on the base of the perinatal center of the Almazov North-West National Medical Research Centre. A model of patient exposure was developed using PCXMC 2.0 software. The results of the patient dose assessment indicated that the use of prospective portable X-ray unit will allow reducing patient doses up to an order of magnitude – to 9-14 µSv per one babygram. Effective doses and dose-area product per babygram estimated in this study were significantly higher compared with the available data. Estimated radiation risks per one babygram for both surveyed X-ray units belonged to "negligible" or "very low" categories [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]