Workload Spectra and Occupational Dosimetry in Interventionist Radiology

摘要

Interventionist radiology is one of the imaging modalities which provides higher staff doses. Thisoccurs firstly because the professionals involved on the conduction of the procedures must be close to thepatient, and also because the workload required for generating adequate images is substantially high. Therefore,national standards and international recommendations of radiation protection specify the use of lead aprons,thyroid protector and individual monitoring. The workload spectra of 247 interventionist procedures wereregistered. These angiographic procedures were grouped on 149 cardiac, 66 neurological; and 32 peripheralones. Additional information regarding the patient age, sex and weight were also obtained. The professionalsconducting the procedures were grouped on three categories: physician 1, physician 2 and nurse. Thesecategories are basically related to the proximity of these professionals to the patient during the procedures; and,consequently, are related to the individual doses received. Each staff category was monitored for a group ofprocedures using thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) specially selected and calibrated to the purpose of thiswork. The evaluated workload spectra presented peaks around 75 kV and 110 kV for cardiologic investigations,and around 65 kV for neurology, and an approximately uniform distribution for peripheral procedures. Theresults of the workload evaluation presented 61.3 mA.min per patient in neurological angiographic procedures,99.0 mA.min per patient in peripheral angiographic procedures, and 170.7 mA.min per patient in cardiacprocedures. The mean individual doses evaluated per procedure were on the intervals from (0.003±0.001) mSvto (0.101±0.022) mSv for neurology angiography procedures, from (0.004±0.001) mSv to (0.104±0.022) mSvfor peripheral angiography procedures, and from (0.124±0.023) mSv to (0.189±0.048) mSv for cardiacprocedures. These workload and dose values can be used as institutional reference levels in order to establishpreventive programs for protecting the staff conducting interventional radiology procedures.