Radiation Protection Dosimetry Advance Access originally published online on February 3, 2006
Radiation Protection Dosimetry 2005 117(1-3):247-250; doi:10.1093/rpd/nci757
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Retrospective evaluation of occurrence of skin injuries in interventional cardiac procedures
1 Medical Physics Institute, S. Maria della Misericordia Hospital, Udine, Italy
2 Emodinamic Unit of Cardiology Department, S. Maria della Misericordia Hospital, Udine, Italy
3 Specialisation School in Medical Physics, University of Bologna, Italy
4 Radiotherapy Department, S. Maria della Misericordia Hospital, Udine, Italy
* Corresponding author: padovani.renato{at}aoud.sanita.fvg.it
Interventional cardiology procedures can involve high doses to patients and, in particular, to patients' skin, the tissue at greatest risk of deterministic injuries. The evaluation of skin dose from interventional procedures is recommended, but difficult because of the amount of different X-ray fields and projections used in a procedure. For this reason, a retrospective follow-up study has been developed to identify skin injuries in patients submitted to one or more cardiac interventions in the Udine hospital between 1998 and 2002. Seventy-eight patients with a cumulative dose-area product >300 Gy cm2 were selected from 3332 patients, who underwent 5039 procedures. In this group the maximum skin dose was 6.7 Gy. The clinical follow-up, performed using the LENT-SOMA methodology, has not detected skin injuries and this result allows a frequency to be estimated for skin injuries in patients undergoing repeated cardiac procedures of <3 x 104 in our centre.