The Effect oF Eye and Breast Shielding in Cervical Spine Radiography: A Phantom Study

Abstract

Cervical spine radiography is the most frequent procedure to rule out any injuries to the cervical spine which are mainly caused by vehicular accidents and trauma. X-ray is often considered the main method for distinguishing possible fractures in patients experiencing trauma in emergencies. Hence, scatter radiation is the main source of radiation dose while maintaining the principle of radiation protection. This study evaluates the effectiveness of breast and eye shielding by measuring the entrance surface dose (ESD) towards radiosensitive organs during AP axial cervical spine radiography. An experiment was conducted on an anthropomorphic female phantom, and a Radcal dosimeter was used to measure the scattered radiation dose before and after the placement of lead shielding over both organs. The effects of application shielding on patients of different sizes are also being assessed. A total of 30 readings of data were collected and analysed using the SPSS. As a result, the radiation shielding of the eyes and breasts decreased radiation dose by 5.8% and 61.2% respectively, meanwhile, for different sizes of patients, there was an increment of percentage of dose reduction with and without the usage of lead shielding as the patient size increases where paediatric (3.2%), average adult (5.8%) and obese adult (7.74%). It is proved that shielding towards radiosensitive organs is important and as their size increases although it is not in the region of interest they are still exposed to scattered radiation .