Background/introduction
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Interventional radiology procedures can produce high patient doses and therefore require special attention to protect the patient from radiation injuries [1–5]. Therefore, it is very important to define an optimization process. In 2007 the ICRP suggests for the first time the use of Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRL) in interventional radiology [6] in terms of three dosimetric indicators: KAP, cumulative air kerma, fluoroscopy time [7].
The aim of this study is to compare the exposure level of adult patients subjected to interventional procedures...
Description of activity and work performed
METHOD AND MATHERIALS
Twenty-one centers retrospectively collected data related to FT, KAP, and Ka,r for 11 interventional procedures. In total, data for 15200 procedures were collected between 2015 and 2019.
The hospitals wererequested to collect data on a sample of at least 20 patients for each procedure. For procedures where data has been provided by more than 10 centers, local DRLs can be obtained. For all other procedures, the median values of distributions are compared with national or literature DRLs.
RESULTS
Figures 1-4 show the...
Conclusion and recommendations
CONCLUSION
This is the first study in which data from different Italian centres are compared with national DRLs. It can be seen that a good level of optimization has been achieved in cardiology procedures. Moreover, this study proves that radiological practice can be optimized not only by technological improvements, but also by modifying working modalities such using the low-dose fluoroscopy mode and reducing fps and pps.
Table 4 summarizes local DRLs proposed in this study.
Table 4. Local DRL.
Fluoroscopy Time (min)
Total KAP
(Gy...
Personal/organisational information
M. Cavallari; Pavia/IT - nothing to disclose L. D'ercole; Pavia/IT - nothing to disclose P. Isoardi; Turin/IT - nothing to disclose C. Giordano; Piacenza/IT - nothing to disclose N. Paruccini; Monza/IT - nothing to disclose S. Pini; Florence/IT - nothing to disclose A. Trianni; Udine/IT - nothing to disclose
References
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Wagner LK, McNeese MD, Marx MV, Siegel EL. Severe skin reactions from interventional fluoroscopy: case report and review of the literature. Radiology 1999; 213:773–6.
Balter S, Hopewell JW, Miller DL, Wagner LK, Zelefsky MJ. Fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures: a review of radiation effects on patients’skin and hair. Radiology 2010; 2:326–41.
Spiker A, Zinn Z, Carter WH, Powers R, Kovach R. Fluoroscopy-induced chronic radiation dermatitis. Am...