[Radiation hygiene in medical X-ray imaging, part 1: physical and technical basics].

In this first part of a series of three articles on radiation hygiene in medical X-ray imaging the characteristics of X-rays, their interactions with matter and the components of X-ray equipment are described from a radiation protection point of view. The fundamental radiation protection measures like filtration and beam limitation are introduced as well as the various conventional and digital image receptor systems. Moreover the absorbed dose and other practical dose terms as well as metrological and theoretical methods for dose assessment are introduced. The aim of this paper is to explain the essential physical and technical basics of X-ray imaging and the assessment of the resulting radiation dose.