Effect of the radiation protective apron on the response of active and passive personal dosemeters used in interventional radiology and cardiology

In fluoroscopy guided interventional procedures, workers use protective garments and often two personal dosemeters, the readings of which are used for the estimation of the effective dose; whereas the dosemeter above the protection can be used for the estimation of the equivalent dose of the lens of the eye. When a protective apron is worn the scattered field that reaches the dosemeter is different from the case where no protection is used; this study analyses the changes in the response of seven passive and eight active personal dosemeters (APDs) when they are placed above a lead or lead equivalent garment for S-Cs and x-ray diagnostic qualities. Monte Carlo simulations are used to support the experimental results. It is found that for passive dosemeters, the influence on the dosemeter’s response to the lead or lead equivalent was within the range 15%–38% for the x-ray qualities. This effect is smaller, of the order of 10%, when lead-free garments are used, and much smaller, within 1%–10%, for most of the APDs used in the study. From these results it is concluded that when comparing passive and active dosemeter measurements worn above the protection, a difference of 20%–40% is expected. The effect is small when deriving the effective dose from double dosimetry algorithms, but it can be of major importance when eye lens monitoring is based on the use of the dosemeter worn above the protection.