SU-G-IeP3-13: Real-Time Patient and Staff Dose Monitoring in Fluoroscopy Guided Interventions.

PURPOSE: Interventional radiology procedures involve the use of X-rays, which can pose a large radiation burden on both patients and staff. Although some reports on radiation dose are available, most studies focus on limited types of procedures and only report patient dose. In our cathlabs a dedicated real-time patient and staff monitoring system was installed in November 2015. The aim of this study was to investigate the patient and staff dose exposure for different types of interventions.

METHODS: Radiologists involved in fluoroscopy guided interventional radiology procedures wore personal dose meters (PDM, DoseAware, Philips) on their lead-apron that measured the personal dose equivalent Hp(10), a measure for the effective dose (E). Furthermore, reference PDMs were installed in the C-arms of the fluoroscopy system (Allura XPer, Philips). Patient dose-area-product (DAP) and PDM doses were retrieved from the monitoring system (DoseWise, Philips) for each procedure. A total of 399 procedures performed between November 2015 and February 2016 were analyzed with respect to the type of intervention. Interventions were grouped by anatomy and radiologist position.

RESULTS: The mean DAP for the different types of interventions ranged from 2.86±2.96 Gycm(2) (percutaneous gastrostomy) to 147±178 Gycm(2) (aortic repair procedures). The radiologist dose (E) ranged from 5.39±7.38 µSv (cerebral interventions) to 84.7±106 µSv (abdominal interventions) and strongly correlated with DAP (R(2) =0.83). The E normalized to DAP showed that the relative radiologist dose was higher for interventions in larger body parts (e.g. abdomen) compared to smaller body parts (e.g. head).

CONCLUSION: Using a real-time dose monitoring system we were able to assess the staff and patient dose revealing that the relative staff dose strongly depended on the type of procedure and patient anatomy. This could be explained by the position of the radiologist with respect to the patient and X-ray tube. To facilitate this study L Vergoossen received a scholarship from Philips Medical Systems.