If an X-ray beam examination of a fractured tibia results in a tissue dose of 20 mGyt, what is the effective body dose?

To determine the effective body dose from the tissue dose resulting from an X-ray examination, it's crucial to apply the concept of tissue weighting factors and the relationship between absorbed dose and effective dose.

In X-ray examinations, the effective dose can be derived by multiplying the absorbed dose (in gray or Gy) by a weighting factor that accounts for the sensitivity of different tissues to radiation. For example, the specific parts of the body that may receive exposure during an X-ray examination often require consideration of the whole-body effects of the radiation received.

In the scenario presented, a tissue dose of 20 mGyt can be converted into Gy (1 Gy = 1,000 mGy), resulting in 0.02 Gy. When this tissue dose is applied to a whole-body effective dose calculation, a common conversion factor for assessing the effective dose from typical X-ray examinations is around 0.1 to 0.2 depending on the specific protocol and the tissues involved.

In this case, using a weighting factor that correlates to the effective dose enables us to arrive at around 2.6 Sv for the whole-body effective dose derived from the initial tissue dose. This aligns with radiation safety standards that inform how we interpret the risk associated with various doses of radiation