Abstract Background Radiographic examinations are crucial to diagnosis and management of young patients hospitalized in a pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU). Since these infants are often subject to a large number of repeated X-ray examinations in order to follow up their clinical situation, special attention must be paid to use protocol aimed to dose reduction. Objective This work was aimed to perform a radiological survey of children undergoing chest X-ray examinations in a CICU. The study was focused on the evaluation of collimation, Dose-Area-Product (DAP) and Effective doses (E) to patients subjected to repeated examinations with optimized protocols. Materials and methods As suggested by the European Guidelines on Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) for Pediatric Imaging, patients have been stratified in two groups (group I included newborn having weight Results The integrated system DAP chamber has been validated. Data are related to examinations performed both with a standard technique (exposure parameters manually set by operators) and with an optimized protocol. The adoption of the optimized protocol resulted in a decrease of DAP and E for both weight groups. The median DAP values obtained with standard and optimized protocols respectively decrease from 4.0 to 3.4 mGy cm2 for group I and from 7.3 to 6.2 mGy cm2 for group II while effective doses decreased from 5.6 to 5.0 mGy cm2 for group I and from 5.0 to 4.2 mGy cm2 for group II. Conclusion This work has shown that DAP and E values obtained with the optimized protocol were relatively low compared to previous literature. Particularly, DAP and E decrease up to 15% and 16% respectively using the optimized protocol. These results are particularly relevant for patients undergoing a great number of repeated X-ray examinations.

中文翻译：

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儿科心脏重症监护室重复胸部 X 光检查的优化方案

摘要 背景放射学检查对于在儿科心脏重症监护病房 (CICU) 住院的年轻患者的诊断和管理至关重要。由于这些婴儿经常接受大量重复的 X 射线检查以跟踪他们的临床情况，因此必须特别注意使用旨在减少剂量的方案。目的 这项工作旨在对在 CICU 进行胸部 X 线检查的儿童进行放射学调查。该研究的重点是评估经过优化方案反复检查的患者的准直、剂量面积乘积 (DAP) 和有效剂量 (E)。材料和方法 根据欧洲儿科影像诊断参考水平 (DRL) 指南的建议，使用优化的协议，DAP 和 E 分别降低了 15% 和 16%。这些结果与接受大量重复 X 射线检查的患者特别相关。