Which will reduce patient radiation dose?

• A. Increased thickness of the aluminum tabletop
• B. Use more radio-absorbent cassette fronts
• C. Use KEVLAR cassette fronts
• D. Increase grid ratio

Answer: (A)

Increasing beam filtration reduces the dose the patient receives by removing the low-energy photons that contribute to skin dose but don’t improve image quality. The aluminum tabletop adds filtration in the beam path; making it thicker means more of those soft photons are filtered out before they reach the patient, so the patient’s skin dose decreases. If needed, exposure can be adjusted to maintain image quality, but the overall dose to the patient is reduced. The other options don’t achieve the same reduction: altering cassette front absorption or using different front materials mainly affects signal reaching the detector or handling, not the patient’s dose in the same way; increasing grid ratio lowers scatter but often requires higher exposure, which can offset any dose savings.