Skin dose measurements on patients for diagnostic and interventional neuroradiology: a multicentre study

In our country, the number of interventional neuroradiology procedures for the treatment of vascular lesions in the brain and neck region is increasing. These procedures, however, are associated with high doses of X-rays. Present study reports on skin dose measurements on patients undergoing these procedures. Grids of TLDs were attached on the head of the patient. The exposure factors of the X-ray systems and the clinical procedures were fully documented. While for the diagnostic procedure the dose threshold of 2 Gy for deterministic effects is not reached, this situation was very different for the embolisations: maximum skin doses up to 5.4 Gy were measured. The maximum skin doses correlated well with the effective fluoroscopy time and with DAP per irradiation direction. This means that for new X-ray systems, where DAP per projection is reported, maximum skin doses can be estimated from these values. Also a correlation was found between the maximum skin dose measured on a patient and the total DAP-value. In conclusion, especially during interventional procedures, fluoroscopy time should be kept as low as possible and different irradiation views should be used. This requires training, specialisation and well documented procedure guidelines.