rad safety exam 1

Consequences of ionization in human cells include

1. creation of unstable atoms.

2. production of free electrons.

3. creation of highly reactive free radicals capable of producing substances poisonous to the cell.

4. creation of new biologic molecules detrimental to the living cell.

5. injury to the cell that may manifest itself as abnormal function or loss of function.

1,2,3,4, and 5

Which of the following is a form of radiation that is capable of creating electrically charged particles by removing orbital electrons from the atom of normal matter through which it passes?

Ionizing radiation

Regarding exposure to ionizing radiation, patients who are educated to understand the medical benefit of an imaging procedure are more likely to

suppress any radiation phobia and be willing to assume a small chance of possible biologic damage.

The millisievert (mSv) is equal to

1/1000 of a sievert

The advantages of the BERT method are

1. it does not imply radiation risk; it is simply a means for comparison.

2. it emphasizes that radiation is an innate part of our environment.

3. it provides an answer that is easy for the patient to comprehend.

1, 2, and 3

If a patient asks a radiographer a question about how much radiation he or she will receive from a specific x-ray procedure, the radiographer can

respond by using an estimation based on the comparison of radiation received from the x-ray to natural background radiation received.

Why should the selection of technical exposure factors for all medical imaging procedures always follow ALARA?

Because radiation-induced cancer does not appear to have a dose level below which individuals would have no chance of developing this disease.

The cardinal principles of radiation protection include which of the following?

1, 2, and 3

In a hospital setting, which of the following professionals is expressly charged by the hospital administration with being directly responsible for the execution, enforcement, and maintenance of the ALARA program?

Radiation Safety Officer

Why is a question concerning the amount of radiation a patient will receive during a specific x-ray procedure difficult to answer?

1. Because the received dose is specified in a number of different units of measure

2. Because the scientific units for radiation dose are normally not comprehensible by a patient

3. Because the patient should not receive any information about radiation dose

1 and 2 only

X-rays are a form of which of the following kinds of radiation

Ionizing

What unit is used to measure radiation exposure in the metric International System of Units?

Coulomb per kilogram

What organization was founded in 2007 that continues their pursuit to raise awareness of the need for dose reduction protocols by promoting pediatric-specified scan protocols to be used for both radiology and nonradiology users of CT?

Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging

Which of the following provides the basis for determining whether an imaging procedure or practice is justified?

Diagnostic efficacy

Which of the following is a method of explaining radiation to the public?

BERT

Radiology departments or individual radiologic technologists can “pledge” to image gently. The pledge includes which of the following?

1. Make the image gently message a priority in staff communications each year.

2. Review the protocol recommendations and, when necessary, implement adjustments to practice processes.

3. Communicate openly with parents

1, 2, and 3

In a team approach to patient care, various participants

1. assume responsibility for their areas of expertise.

2. emphasize the importance of communication throughout the team

3. rotate as the person in charge of the team

1 and 2 only

Which of the following radiation quantities is intended to be the best overall measure of the biologic effects of ionizing radiation?

Effective dose

Typically, people are more willing to accept a risk if they perceive that the potential benefit to be obtained is

greater than the risk involved

Which of the following statements below is true?

a.

It appears that no safe dose level exists for radiation-induced malignant disease.

b.

The ALARA principle establishes a dose level for radiation-induced malignancy.

c.

The BERT method establishes a dose level for radiation-induced malignancy.

d.

The NEXT program and reference values establish a dose level for radiation-induced malignancy.

It appears that no safe dose level exists for radiation-induced malignant disease

The ALARA principle provides a method for comparing the amount of radiation used in various health care facilities in a particular area for specific imaging procedures. This information may be helpful to many

regulatory agencies

The term as low as reasonable achievable (ALARA) is synonymous with the term

optimization for radiation protection (ORP)

Diagnostic efficacy includes

1. determining if an imaging procedure is justified.

2. obtaining images with minimal radiation exposure.

3. adhering to radiation safety guidelines.

4. revealing the presence or absence of disease in a patient.

1, 2, 3, and 4

Which of the following are required by The Joint Commission for CT?

1. Annual education of staff in dose reduction techniques

2. Minimum qualifications for medical physicists

3. Documentation of CT radiation doses

4. Management of CT protocols to minimize radiation dose

1, 2, 3, and 4

Effective protective measures take into consideration

1. both human and environmental physical determinants.

2. technical elements.

3. procedural factors.

1, 2, and 3

If ionizing radiation from natural sources grows larger because of accidental or deliberate human actions such as mining radioactive elements, the sources are termed

enhanced natural sources

Electromagnetic radiation travels or propagates through space in the form of a wave but can interact with matter as a particle of energy called a photon. This dual nature is referred to as

wave-particle duality

Which of the following statements concerning the 1979 nuclear reactor accident at TMI-2 is not true?

Many excess cancer deaths have been predicted to occur in the 2 million people living within 50 miles of the plant at the time of the accident.

Terrestrial radiation includes which of the following sources?

Long-lived radioactive elements such as uranium-238, radium-226, and thorium-232 that are present in variable quantities in the crust of the earth

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that action be taken to reduce elevated levels of radon in homes to a concentration less than

4 pCi/L.

Cosmic radiation occurs in which two forms?

Solar and galactic

As a result of technologic advances since the 1970s and strict regulations imposed within the United States by the FDA regarding consumer products containing radioactive material, the radiation exposure of the general public from such produces may now be considered

negligible

Through which of the following routes can radon enter houses?

1. Crawl spaces under living areas

2. Floor drains and sump pumps

3. Porous cement block foundations

1, 2, and 3

Acute melting of the uranium dioxide fuel of a nuclear reactor core requires how great a temperature?

Greater than 5000° F

When exposed to high radon levels in the home, which of the following groups of people have the highest risk of developing lung cancer?

Smokers

Which of the following helps shield the global population from exposure to essentially all high-energy, bombarding cosmic rays?

Atmosphere and magnetic field of the Earth

Which of the following is considered by the EPA to be the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States?

Radon exposure

Which of the following are forms of electromagnetic radiation?

1. Microwaves

2. Visible light

3. X-rays

4. Gamma rays

5. Ultraviolet radiation

1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

What is the most common unit of measure of equivalent dose?

Millisievert

In the electromagnetic spectrum, higher frequencies are associated with

shorter wavelengths and higher energies

Which of the following radiation quantities use the same unit of measure?

1. Effective dose and equivalent dose

2. Exposure and effective dose

3. Absorbed dose and equivalent dose

1

A flight on a typical commercial airliner results in an equivalent dose rate of

0.005 to 0.01 mSv/hr.

The first decay product of radium is

radon

When spread over the inhabitants of the United States, fallout from nuclear weapons tests and other environmental sources along with other manmade radiations contributes

only a small portion of 0.1 mSv to the equivalent dose of each person.

What is the total average annual radiation equivalent dose for estimated levels of radiation exposure for humans?

6.3 mSv

The mass of an alpha particle is approximately

four times the mass of a hydrogen atom and a positive charge twice that of an electron.

What is the half-life of radon-220?

54.5 seconds

Which of the following sources of radiation is manmade?

1. Atmospheric fallout from nuclear weapons testing

2. Cosmic radiation from the sun and beyond the solar system

3. Nuclear power plant accidents as a consequence of natural disasters

1 and 3 only

What is the latent period for most radiation-induced cancers

15 years or more

Of the two sources of ionizing radiation listed below, which source remains fairly constant from year to year?

Natural

Particles associated with electromagnetic radiation that have neither mass nor electric charge are

x-ray photons

Although coherent scattering is most likely to occur ____________, some of this unmodified scattering occurs throughout the diagnostic range and may result in small amounts of radiographic fog.

at less than 10 keV

Which of the following is not a type of interaction between x-radiation and biologic matter?

Bremsstrahlung

The symbol Z indicates

atomic number of an atom

In photoelectric absorption to dislodge an inner-shell electron from its atomic orbit, the incoming x-ray photon must be able to transfer a quantity of energy

as large as or larger than the amount of energy that holds the electron in its orbit.

Which of the following interactions between x-ray photons with matter involve a matter–antimatter annihilation reaction?

Pair production

The probability of occurrence of photoelectric absorption _________ as the energy of the incident photon decreases and the atomic number of the irradiated atoms _________.

increases markedly; increases

Which of the following terms refers to the radiation that occurs when an electron spontaneously drops down from an outer shell of an ionized atom to fill a vacancy in an inner shell of that atom?

Characteristic photon, or characteristic x-ray

Fluorescent radiation is also known as

characteristic radiation

What is the effective atomic number of compact bone?

13.8

Which of the following is not another term for coherent scattering?

Characteristic

Which of the following are by-products of photoelectric absorption?

Photoelectron and characteristic photon

Which two interactions between x-radiation and matter may result in the production of small-angle scatter?

Coherent scattering and Compton scattering

Which of the following particles is considered to be a form of antimatter?

Positron

Which of the following interactions results in the conversion of matter into energy?

Annihilation reaction

Compton scattering is synonymous with

incoherent scattering

During the process of coherent scattering, an incident low-energy x-ray photon interacts with

an atom and may transfer its energy by causing some or all of the electrons of the atom to momentarily vibrate and radiate energy in the form of electromagnetic waves.

What is the term for the number of x-rays emitted per inner-shell vacancy during the process of photoelectric absorption?

Fluorescent yield

Which of the following results in all-directional scatter

Compton interaction

Annihilation radiation is used in which of the following modalities?

Positron emission tomography

The x-ray photon energy required to initiate pair production is

1.022 MeV

If two anatomic structures have the same density and atomic number but one is twice as thick as the other, the thicker structure will absorb

twice as many x-ray photons

Since the density of air is approximately _________________ than that of soft tissue, a given volume of air will interact with far fewer x-ray photons than adjacent regions of soft tissue, thereby permitting more radiation to reach the image receptor.

1000 times smaller

When an inner electron is removed from an atom in a photoelectric interaction, thus causing an inner-shell vacancy, the energy liberated when this vacancy is filled can be transferred to another electron of the atom, thereby ejecting that electron, instead of emerging from the atom as characteristic radiation. What is this electron called?

Auger electron

X-rays are carriers of

manmade electromagnetic energy

Consequences of ionization in human cells include

1. creation of unstable atoms.

2. production of free electrons.

3. creation of highly reactive free radicals capable of producing substances poisonous to the cell.

4. creation of new biologic molecules detrimental to the living cell.

5. injury to the cell that may manifest itself as abnormal function or loss of function.

1,2,3,4 and 5

The function of an X-ray beam filter in diagnostic radiology is to

decrease the x-radiation dose to the patient’s skin and superficial tissue

A given dose of radiation generally has the greatest potential for damage in tissues that have

More rapidly dividing cells