Lowering patient dose on single-phase X-ray units.

In this study, entrance skin doses for AP pelvis and lateral lumbar spine examinations were measured with single-phase, three-phase and medium frequency x-ray generators. Results showed that for equal tube voltage (kVp) exposure to achieve similar film density, the ESD was significantly higher with the single-phase generator than the other two generators. Further research showed that by increasing kVp, the single-phase generator could achieve the lower ESD values obtained with the three-phase and medium frequency generators while maintaining similar film density and contrast.