The frequency of interventional radiology (IR) procedures has seen significant growth over the past decades. This is justified by the undisputed clinical benefits of the IR practice, the increasing clinical skills of the operators and the development of new techniques with improved X-ray systems, digital detectors, new post processing, three-dimensional imaging etc. However, IR can involve high doses to the patients. Specifically, the dose to the patients’ skin can, in some cases, exceed the threshold of tissue reactions [1-3]. As a consequence, optimization of radiation...

Figure 1 illustrates the method of setting up local reference levels for abdominal IR procedures. The present study focused on four of the most irradiating abdominal procedures in the interventional radiology department: hepatic embolizations (HE), gastro-intestinal embolizations (GE), Transjugular Intrahepatic Porto-Systemic Shunt (TIPSS) and Percutaneous Transhepatic Cholangiography (PTC). Using the dose management solution, data on the fluoroscopy time, Kerma Area Product (KAP) and reference air kerma (Ka,r) were collected over a one year period. From these records, a set of interventional RL was deduced using...

99 patients were included in this study: 32 TIPSS, 24 PTC, 11 GE and 32 HE. KAP, Ka,r and fluoroscopy time distributions are given in figure 2 for TIPSS, in figure 3 for PTC, in figure 4 for GE and in figure 5 for HE procedures. The 75th percentiles are also shown on each histogram. The suggested KAP RL deduced from the 75th percentile of the distributions are 350 Gy.cm2, 41 Gy.cm2,120 Gy.cm2, and 280 Gy.cm2 for TIPSS, PTC, GE and HE respectively. The estimated...

The establishment of reference levels in interventional radiology requires a close and continuous cooperation between the physician, the medical physicist and the radiologic technologist. The local provisional RL values established at the Jean Verdier Hospital are comparable to those proposed by other international studies. Using the dose monitoring software, alerts will be sent to the physician and the medical physicist when dose levels exceed the defined local reference levels for each exam. In this case, investigation is initiated and data are analysed to propose corrective...

1. Koenig TR, Wolff D, Mettler FA, Wagner LK (2001) Skin injuries from fluoroscopically guided procedures: Part 1. Characteristics of radiation injury. AJR Am J Roentgenol 177(1):3-11 2. Koenig TR, Mettler FA, Wagner LK (2001) Skin injuries from fluoroscopically guided procedures: Part 2. Review of 73 cases and recommendations for minimizing dose delivered to patient. AJR Am J Roentgenol 177(1):13-20 3. Batler S, Hopewell JW, Miller DL, et al. (2010) Fluoroscopy guided interventional procedures: A review of radiation effects on patients’ skin and hair. Radiology...