Assessment of Radiographic Film Quality in Some Selected Hospitals in Benue State

Abstract

The essence of diagnostic radiology is to obtain a high quality image with low radiation dose to patient. Since radiology is aimed in producing images which provide adequate information for the clinical purpose with minimum radiation dose to the patient, we seek to assess the high image qualities that are produced in the darkroom. The processing time and the temperature, at which these films were processed, stored and also evaluated, were carried out in the darkroom. Agfa films were used throughout the procedure in four different hospitals, H-1, H-2, H-3 and H-4 and the processing chemicals were observed for the period of a month. Therefore, in H-1, the average temperature was found to be 29^oC, average temperature was 26^oC in H-2; in H-3, average temperature was 30^oC and the average temperature in H-4 was found to be 29^oC which all fall above the standard temperature limit (25^oC) as recommended by National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). From the experimental proceedings in the darkroom, the distance from safelight to workbench, it shows that H-1 and H-2 do not conform to the standard while H-3 and H-4 are in conformity. The result obtained from darkroom fog test shows that, the Optical Density Difference (ODD) for H-1, H-2, H-3 and H-4 was found to be 0.16, 0.07, 0.18 and 0.35 respectively, which were all found to be above the ICRP standard limit (0.05).  This implies that, most hospitals in Makurdi operates below the set darkroom practices as recommended by NCRP and ICRP which affects the quality of image as a result of high temperature, poor concentration in processing chemicals and some effect of fogging in the darkroom which needs to be checked.