Radiation Protection Dosimetry Advance Access published online on February 20, 2008
Radiation Protection Dosimetry, doi:10.1093/rpd/ncn038
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STAFF DOSIMETRY IN INTERVENTIONAL CARDIOLOGY: SURVEY ON METHODS AND LEVEL OF EXPOSURE
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1 Medical Physics Department, Udine Hospital, Italy
2 Luxembourg's Hospital Association, Luxembourg
3 Medical Physics Department, Nicosia General Hospital, Cyprus
4 Radiology Department,Hairmyres Hospital, UK
5 Tartu University, Estonia
6 Department of Personal Dosimetry, Bratislava, Slovakia
7 STUK, Finland
8 Medical Physics Department, St James's Hospital, Dublin, UK
9 Department of Radiology, Innsbruck University Hospital, Austria
10 Medical Physics Department, Konstantopoulio Hospital, Athens, Greece
11 Medial Physics Department, S. Carlos University Hospital, Madrid, Spain
12 Laboratory for Radiation Protection in Medicine, Sofia, Bulgaria
13 Institute of Occupational Safety, Slovenia
* Corresponding author: foti.claudio{at}aoud.sanita.fvg.it
In interventional cardiac procedures, staff operates near the patient in a non-uniformly scattered radiation field. Consequently, workers may receive, over a period, relatively high radiation doses. The measurement of individual doses to personnel becomes critical due to the use of protective devices and, as a consequence of the large number of methods proposed to assess the effective dose, great variability in monitoring programmes is expected among European countries. SENTINEL consortium has conducted a survey on staff dosimetry methods and on the level of staff exposure in 12 European cardiac centres demonstrating the urgent need to harmonise dosimetry methods. From the dosimetry survey, constraint annual effective dose of 1.4 mSv and Hp(0.07) over the protective apron of 14 mSv are proposed for the optimisation the exposure the most-exposed operator.