This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Endovascular interventions exposed operators to more radiation than coronary procedures
Operators who performed endovascular procedures for pelvic, upper limb and below-the-knee disease experienced increased radiation exposure in the cath lab compared with those who performed coronary procedures.
For the prospective, single-center study, researchers in Germany measured radiation doses of three operators by real-time dosimetry for body, neck and hand. This included 284 procedures performed on 281 patients during 14 weeks. The researchers used three mixed models to determine the relationship between the type of procedure and the disease and to draw a comparison between the procedures.
The operators were exposed to a mean effective dose of 2.2 ± 5.9 mcSv per procedure. The researchers observed that type of procedure, the patient’s BMI and fluoroscopy time were each linked with operator’s radiation exposure (P<.05 for all). For pelvic procedures, mean effective dose was 2.3-fold higher (P<.001), 1.7-fold higher in upper limb procedures (P<.001) and 1.4-fold higher in below-the-knee procedures (P=.023) compared with coronary angiography.
In other data, the eye dose (mean, 19.1 ± 37.6 mcSv) was significantly higher in peripheral procedures, whereas the hand dose (mean, 99.6 ± 196 mcSv) was significantly higher in patients with pelvic disease compared with those undergoing coronary angiography, upper limb and below-the-knee procedures.
“Although recommended dose limits were not exceeded in our study, radiation exposure may have biological effects depending on the type and frequency of procedures performed, the time lag between the procedures, the fluoroscopy time and a patient’s BMI,” the researchers wrote. “Therefore, protection devices, spectral filtration, pulsed fluoroscopy and low frame rates should be used whenever possible.”
Disclosure: One researcher reports being an employee of Philips Healthcare.