Due to the relatively high occupational doses associated with interventional and diagnostic fluoroscopy procedures it is important to create awareness about and to quantify the radiation environment that medical staff are exposed to. A computer program was developed to analyze dose data collected from a dosimetry system that uses active personal dosimeters to monitor staff dose in real-time, to obtain an expanded analysis of the radiation environment that clinical staff are exposed to, on a procedural basis. The analyses that are made per procedure and staff member include: accumulated dose μSv, maximum and median dose rate mSv/h, the amount of time a staff member has been exposed to radiation compared to the total fluoroscopy time and the percentage of accumulated dose from 3 different dose rate intervals, including < 0.3 mSv/h, 0.3 - 2.6 mSv/h, and < 2.6 mSv/h. The developed computer program was used to analyze dose data collected from the dosimetry system at the Karolinska University Hospital to study the radiation environment that different categories of staff are exposed to during interventional aorta aneurysm treatment procedures. The analyses have provided the ability to know where to concentrate radiation safety training in interventional and diagnostic fluoroscopy and to ensure that operating rooms are equipped with adequate radiation protection (e.g., radiation protection barriers etc.). The developed computer program and dose data collected from the dosimetry system can be appropriated for other radiation environmental studies in diagnostic x-ray imaging.

Date Published: 6 March 2013
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8668, Medical Imaging 2013: Physics of Medical Imaging, 86683X (6 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2007571

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8668:
Medical Imaging 2013: Physics of Medical Imaging
Robert M. Nishikawa; Bruce R. Whiting; Christoph Hoeschen, Editor(s)