Abstract
[Purpose] To clarify the entrance skin dose (ESD) to both patients and operators during neurointerventional procedures.
[Materials and Methods] Institutional review board approved and oral informed consent was obtained from each patient. The ESD was measured for 32 patients (11 men and 21 women) between 15 and 76 years of age (median age, 61.5 years) using photoluminescence glass dosimeters (PLD). The ESDs for operators were measured simultaneously. Angiographic parameters including x-ray tube voltage, total exposure time, total fluoroscopic time, the number of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) studies and frames, and the dose-area product (DAP) were recorded during the procedure. The Pearson correlation test was used to determine the relationship between the maximum ESD and each of the angiographic parameters.
[Results] For 28 therapeutic IVR procedures, the maximum ESD was 1788 ± 1259 mGy (mean ± SD), and the ESD to the right temporal region, which showed the maximum dose point in average, was 1124 ± 1349 mGy (mean ± SD). The correlations between a patient's maximum ESD and the total exposure time, the DAP, the total number of DSA studies, and the total number of DSA frames were r2 = 0.3622, P < 0.001; r2 = 0.6422, P < 0.001; r2 = 0.3955, P < 0.001; and r2 = 0.7729, P < 0.001, respectively. The ESDs for operators were observed to be less than the threshold for deterministic effects.
[Conclusion] We demonstrated that the local ESD can be measured by the PLD method and that values of ESD with precise geometric information could be obtained. These results are valuable in that they may contribute to reduce x-ray dose accumulation in both patients and operators during neurointerventional procedures.
