Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the effects of lowering the detector entrance exposure in children undergoing interventional radiology procedures. Materials and Methods: The study retrospectively investigated radiation dose levels in pediatric patients aged 0-18 years before (n = 39) and after (n = 26) lowering detector entrance dose, undergoing embolization of peripheral Arteriovenous malformations, Portal ...
Abstract
Purpose: To evaluate the effects of lowering the detector entrance exposure in children undergoing interventional radiology procedures. Materials and Methods: The study retrospectively investigated radiation dose levels in pediatric patients aged 0-18 years before (n = 39) and after (n = 26) lowering detector entrance dose, undergoing embolization of peripheral Arteriovenous malformations, Portal Vein Interventions or Percutaneous Transhepatic Cholangio Drainage (PTCD) between 2014 and 2017. Patient characteristics, fluoroscopy time, protocols used as well as resulting Skin Dose and Dose Area Product (DAP) were compared in each cohort. Image quality was assessed by two independent readers. Results: The two patient cohorts did not differ in terms of patient demographics. Similarly, fluoroscopy time did not differ before and after implementation of the low dose settings. An overall reduction of skin dose of 75.1% for AVM embolizations, 80.5% for Portal Vein Interventions and 85.3% for PTCD placement was observed. The DAP decrease was 82.5% for AVM embolizations, 72.2% for Portal Vein Interventions and 79.8% for PTCD placement. Image quality was generally considered to be good with an insignificant difference between pre and post implementation of the low dose approach and good agreement between the two readers. Manual inroom-switching to higher dose levels was possible, however this was not performed more frequently after implementation of the low dose settings. Conclusion: Lowering the detector entrance dose in pediatric interventional radiology procedures results in a significant decrease of the radiation dose burden.
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