Interventional radiology at a single institution over 9 years: a comprehensive evaluation of procedures and an estimation of collective effective dose

Purpose: To investigate the exposure parameters, effective dose, frequency, and collective dose for interventional radiology (IR) procedures performed at a single institution during a 9-year period.

Materials and methods: According to the anatomic region imaged, seven diagnostic and 16 therapeutic IR procedures performed between 2002 and 2010 were retrospectively investigated with regard to exposure setting parameters and frequency. Dose-area products (DAPs), cumulative doses (CDs), and irradiation time values were analyzed on a sample of 1,100 examinations. DAP distributions (median, mean, and percentiles) were adjunctively determined by using bootstrap resampling in PCXMC software to estimate patient effective dose. Data provided by the Radiological Information System allowed collective effective and per-capita doses to obtained.

Results: The exposure parameters showed widespread variability. The median DAP values for pelvic arteriography and pelvic arterial angioplasty/stent placement were 10,015 and 19,424 cGy·cm(2), respectively. For the 23 procedures studied, the estimated average per-procedure effective dose ranged from 0.34 to 104.9 mSv. The pelvis (37%) was the region most often imaged in diagnostic procedures, and angioplasty/stent treatment of vessels was the most frequently performed therapeutic procedure (44%). During the study period, IR procedures increased in frequency (+137%), with a consequent increase in the per-capita dose (0.172 to 0.461 mSv) and collective dose (21 to 58 man-Sv/y).

Conclusions: A comprehensive Monte Carlo-aided analysis, which allowed evaluation of contributions in terms of per-procedure and collective doses to the population for the practice of IR, showed a significant growth rate during the study period.