Technical note: potentially higher patient radiation doses using digital equipment for barium studies.

Digital fluorography offers several advantages over conventional radiographic systems. The general expectation of digital equipment has been of a lower radiation dose to the patient. A series of dose-area product measurements on two digital sets during barium meal and barium enema examinations has shown that this expectation is not necessarily correct, particularly when the dose from the fluoroscopic part of the examination is considered. Users of digital fluorography sets are advised to check the performance of their equipment by suitable dose measurements.