The effect to dose and diagnostic quality of limiting source-to-image distance on anterior-posterior semi-erect adult chest X-rays

The findings demonstrate that in controlled X-ray settings, the ESD is increased when the SID is reduced from 180cm to 150cm SID (40.1%) and to 100cm SID (121.5%), which furthermore decreases image quality (p = 0.03) and the diagnostic value of the image. It is recommended that radiographers maintain the standard 180 cm SID during adult inpatient semi-erect AP CXR examinations to maintain as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) diagnostic X-ray examinations.