The energy imparted and the effective dose can both be used to describe the risk to the patient in diagnostic radiology. Simple methods must be employed to determine these quantities in clinical situations. Methods using measured relative depth-dose distributions are presented and evaluated here. Measurements of depth-dose distributions for x-ray beams were performed with an ionization chamber, a diode and a number of TL dosimeters. The energy imparted was calculated from measurements with both phantoms and patients. The method of calculating the mean absorbed dose to organs was applied to pelvis and lumbar spine examinations. TL dosimeters were found to be an appropriate detector for measuring depth-dose distributions. When calculating the energy imparted the entrance beam area must be accurately known. The mean absorbed dose to organs can be derived from measured relative depth-dose curves if accurate information on entrance beam position and area is available for the particular examination technique used. The advantage of these methods is that the dose distribution is measured for the photon beam used for the examination of the patients.
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Almén et al. (1996) studied this question.