Aims and objectives
Lead rubber aprons are an essential personal protective devise and should be worn at all times to reduce radiation exposure to employees [1]. This is particularly important for interventional workers [2] who should be provided with correctly fitted aprons so that optimum radiation protection is achieved.
It has been previously reported that lead rubber aprons may not fit staff properly [3]in that the lateral aspect of the aprons were left loose or were not secured to fit the wearer using the adjustable straps possibly because...
Methods and materials
Phantom breast tissue was made using a gelatin/water mix,
3 volumes were made to create different size phantoms (Table 1).
An anthropomorphic multipurpose chest phantom “Lungman” was used as the employee in this study as this is an accurate life size modal of a human torso and the soft tissue and bone structures are closest to those of human tissue [6].
To vary chest size,
front and back chest plates were added in different combinations (Table 1)
The Lungman phantom was positioned to represent an...
Results
Results (Fig. 3) show an increased dose rate when apron is worn open,
and a significant increase dose rate (comparable to not wearing the apron) when the chest size is above the recommended range.
Conclusion
Fig. 3 demonstrates that when a medium sized lead apron is worn closed on an appropriately fitted chest size 101-111cm it provides the greatest radiation protection.
When the apron is worn close,
if the chest size is outside the recommended size range the apron provides no radiation protection to the axillary breast tissue,
as the dose rate becomes equivalent to wearing no lead rubber apron.
When the apron is worn open,
there is less radiation protection when worn within appropriate size range,
and again offers...
References
[1] R.
M.
Joemai,
D.
Zweers,
W.
R.
Obermann et al.,
“Assessment of patient and occupational dose in established and new applications of MDCT fluoroscopy,” AJR Am J Roentgenol,
192(4),
881-6 (2009).
[2] D.
L.
Miller,
E.
Vañó,
G.
Bartal et al.,
“Occupational radiation protection in interventional radiology: a joint guideline of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Society of Europe and the Society of Interventional Radiology,” J Vasc Interv Radiol,
21(5),
607-15 (2010).
[3] S.
A.
Cremen,
and J.
P.
McNulty,
“The availability of appropriately...