Christofides Stelios, Pitri Elina, Lampaskis Marios, Papaefstathiou Christos
Biomedical Research Foundation, P.O. Box 24039, 1700 Nicosia, Cyprus.
Medical Physics Department, Nicosia General Hospital, 215 Limassol Old Road, 2029 Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Phys Med. 2016 Nov;32(11):1437-1443. doi: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2016.10.014. Epub 2016 Oct 27.
The purpose of this study was to determine local DRLs for children and adults undergoing intraoral dental examinations at the intraoral radiology units of the public hospitals in Cyprus.
Measurements were made on all the twenty intraoral X-ray units of the public hospitals in Cyprus with the intention to establish the local DRLs for all the possible intraoral X-ray examinations for children and adults. All units are film based. The measurements were made by a Dose Area Product (DAP) meter (GAMMEX RMI 841-RD) placed at the surface of the dental unit's X-ray shaping cone (FSD 20cm). A diagnostic radiology dosimeter (Dosimax Plus A) was also placed at an FSD of 100cm to compare the dose reading between the two dosimeters.
DRLs were established at the 3rd quartile for 7 exposure settings corresponding to 12 types of teeth (Adult and children mandibular and maxillary incisor, premolar and molar) with values of 197, 163, 128, 102, 81, 65 and 49mGycm and 7.23, 5.94, 4.75, 3.68, 3.10, 2.41 and 1.88mGy for benchmark nominal exposure times of 1000, 800, 640, 500, 400, 320 and 250ms respectively, at a nominal exposure voltage of 70kVp.
The local DRLs of the present study compare well with other similar published DRLs.
