2021 Volume 37 Issue 1 Pages 75-84
Cardiac catheterization is used to diagnose, treat, and monitor the progress of congenital heart disease (CHD). International multicenter trials using database data have been conducted. In these trials, methods of monitoring radiation dose using kerma-area product (KAP) divided by body weight (BW) have been assessed. However, in Japan, dose monitoring methods that take KAP into consideration are not widely used. We aimed to analyze previous reports on the radiation dose received by CHD patients during diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, propose a standard method for monitoring radiation dose in Japan, and ensure that this method will be applicable to database-type data repositories. To evaluate the use of fluoroscopic dose rate (FDR) as a means of monitoring radiation doses, we calculated correlation coefficients for KAP/BW with FDR, FDR/BW, FDR/Height, and the index of FDR and BW in the diagnostic, therapeutic, and total categories. FDR/BW correlated best with KAP/BW, and the coefficients ranged between 0.4 and 0.6. Additionally, correlation coefficients according to age (in days) across all categories were calculated. FDR/BW was a reliable index to compare Japanese and international data. We therefore propose the use of FDR/BW as a standardized method for monitoring stochastic effects related to radiation dose. Calculating this statistic is easy, and future database research may facilitate inter-center comparisons.
