Radiation dose received by patients during barium meal investigations under automatic brightness control

The radiation dose to a group of patients undergoing double-contrast barium meal investigations was monitored using lithium fluoride thermoluminescent dosemeters (TLD). All examinations were performed by the same radiologist in two rooms at the same hospital. Both rooms contained equipment with an undercouch tube/overcouch image intensifier configuration. The examinations were performed at a pre-selected tube potential using automatic brightness control which varied the screening current to keep the dose rate at the image intensifier input surface constant. It may be deduced from the results that there is a significant difference in mean radiation dose between the two rooms. These measurements were used to estimate the radiation dose to other organs, such as the testes, ovaries, uterus and active bone marrow.