Influence of distant scatterer on air kerma measurement in the evaluation of diagnostic X-rays using Monte Carlo simulation

Tominaga, Masahide*; Nagayasu, Yukari*; Sasaki, Motoharu*; Furuta, Takuya   ; Hayashi, Hiroaki*; Oita, Masataka*; Nishiyama, Yuichi*; Haga, Akihiro*

Due to recent advance of diagnostic radiology, the increase of diagnostic radiation exposure to patient becomes problem. Diagnostic Reference Levels has been released to optimized the radiation exposure to patients in Japan recently. The evaluation of entrance surface dose (ESD) is recommended to assess the dose level for general X-ray examination. The ESD can be easily evaluated by multiplying the backscatter factor of the patient body on the free-in-air air kerma. The air kerma free-in-air value used to estimate ESD may contain X-rays scattered from obstacles located at the time of measurement, which may induce non-minor error in assessments. We therefore studied the influence of scattered X-rays on air kerma measurement under various environments (distances, field sizes, and materials). It was found that the dependence on the X-ray energy and field size was different for different materials. The X-ray contamination can be ignored for all the materials when the distance to the scatterer exceeds 35 cm.