The aim of this study was to produce Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) for the most common interventional cardiac procedures performed across three busy cardiac laboratories at a leading national cardiology centre. DRLs aid with the process of examination optimisation and help increase staff awareness of doses associated with specific cardiac interventional procedures. Ireland’s National Medical Exposure Radiation Unit (MERU) has published a limited number of DRLs (see Fig.1) for adult interventional cardiac procedures. [1]This study presents examination specific DRLs that reflect the wide range of...

Dose Area Product (DAP) Gycm2 was chosen as the most relevant metric to facilitate comparison with existing national and European DRLs. Data was collected over a twenty three month period for over five thousand eight hundred examinations spanning a wide range of cardiac procedures across the three cardiac laboratories. This data enabled the median (Q50)and 75th percentile (Q75) values to be calculated for each procedure in each laboratory. The 75th percentile values may be used as local DRLs in each of the three cardiac laboratories....

Examination specific Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) are presented for a wide range of cardiac procedures performed in the three cardiac laboratories at this leading national cardiology centre, including DRLs for diagnostic angiography studies without intervention, device specific interventionalstudies, pacemaker studies, specific electrophysiology ablation studies and Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) studies. The newly established local DRLs can be seen in Fig.4, Fig.5 and Fig.6 representing the combined information across the three cardiac laboratories. These DRLs are presented alongside the relevant national and European DRLs. [1,2,3] The...

Establishing DRLs for specific interventional cardiac procedures in this centre enables comparison with both national and international DRLs. [1,2] Furthermore it has enhanced staff awareness of radiation doses associated with various cardiac procedures and has been a useful tool in the optimisation process.

Brendan Mc Coubrey; Clinical Specialist Radiographer in Radiation Safety, Mater Private Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

[1] The National Radiation Safety Committee (NRSC)Medical Exposure Radiation Unit (MERU)Patient Radiation Protection Manual, 2017 [2]Establishing the European diagnostic reference levels for interventional cardiology,Physica Medica 54 (2018) 42–48 T. Siiskonena et al [3] Investigation of reference levels and radiation dose associated with abdominal EVAR (endovascular aneurysm repair) procedures across several European Centres. Eur Radiol. 2017 Nov;27(11):4846-4856.