PATIENT DOSIMETRY DURING INTERVENTIONAL CARDIAC PROCEDURES IN A DEDICATED CATHETERIZATION LABORATORY

Cardiac interventions often result in high radiation dose to patient's skin, so a reliable indicator in terms of a commonly used dose descriptor is required to monitor skin exposures. In the present study, Gafchromic XR-RV3 film was used to measure the peak skin dose (PSD) during 40 coronary angiography (CA) and 50 percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) procedures. Corresponding values of kerma-area product (P-KA), fluoroscopy time (FT) and reference air-kerma (K-a,K-r) were recorded and correlated with PSD. Doses to patient's eyes and thyroid were also measured by using thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) during PTCA procedures. The average dose to thyroid was about six times higher than the average dose to eyes. The mean values of PSD, P-KA and FT were 1140 mGy, 97 Gy cm(2) and 15.7 min for PTCA and 290 mGy, 21.1 Gy cm(2) and 2.4 min for CA procedures, respectively. One in seven patients of PTCA procedure received PSD > 2 Gy. With respect to FT, P-KA may be used as a better predictor of skin exposures because the correlation of PSD with P-KA was found better than with FT for both CA and PTCA procedures.