Reference Doses for Paediatrics from Fluoroscopic Procedures

The determination of reference doses for paediatrics is complicated both by the widely varying patient size, and the relatively small amount of data that has been collected. Dose-area product data has been collected for over five thousand paediatric patients from fifteen hospitals across the North of England, over a period of three years, The collection of data was facilitated by use of an automated data collection system. In order to make meaningful comparisons of the data, a method of correcting for patient size was formulated. This utilised the concept of equivalent diameter, which is determined from the patient height and weight. All dose-area product data was corrected to that for a standard size for each of five age bands This enabled mean doses to be determined for each age band and examination type for comparativel y large data samples. Third quartile levels were also determined for use as reference dose levels throughout the region.