Background: Chest X-ray is frequently performed for evaluation of chest\ndisease in both adults and children. Children are more exposed to the adverse\neffects of radiation as compared to adults. During our daily practice, we noticed\nthat most of childrenâ??s chest X-ray results were normal. Purpose: This\nstudy aimed to evaluate the indications, the technic, the irradiation and the\nresult of chest X-rays in children in order to know if the practice of these\nX-rays was relevant. Method: Cross-sectional and descriptive study conducted\nat the Imaging Regional Center of Ngaoundere from April to August\n2017. A total number of 145 radiographs and 140 X-ray requests of 140 children\nwere considered in this work. The conformity of the request were verified\naccording to the recommendations of the National Agency for Accreditation\nand Health Evaluation in France (NAAHE), technical condition of realization\nand results were appreciated and the entrance surface dose (ESD) of\nthe patients was estimated using a mathematical algorithm. Results: Children\nunder 5 years (63.5%) were more represented in our study. The main indications\nwere: cough (22.1%), suspicion of pneumonia (16.4%) and bronchitis\n(15.7%). No indication was mentioned on 69.3% of the request forms. After\nconfrontation to the â??Guide for proper use of medical imaging examinationsâ?\n(GPU), we only had 24% conformity of indications. 82.7% of the examinations\nrequired immobilization assistance by the parents. Most of the children\nwere imaged in a standing-up position (82.9%) and the anterior-posterior\nview (77.9%) was more practiced. After the analysis of the pictures, 62% of\nthem presented an optimal contrast, while 42.1% of X-ray were performed\nwithout beam collimation. 25 X-rays were repeated: 12 (48%) because of patientâ??s\nmotion and 13 (52%) of mispositionning. After interpretation, 87\n(62.14%) chest X-ray were normal. Main lesion observed were pneumonia (17.14%) followed by bronchopeumopathy (5.71%) and bronchitis (5%). The\nobtained ESD values were 0.11, 0.15 and 0.17 mGy respectively for the 0 - 1\nyear, 1 - 5 year and 5 - 10 year age groups; 0.2 and 0.57 respectively for postero-\nanterior (PA) and lateral (LAT) view for the age group 10 - 15 years,\nwhich were slightly greater than the values in internationally published studies.\nConclusion: The request for children chest X-ray is not relevant in terms\nof indication, technical conditions of realization and irradiation.
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