Managing patient doses in interventional radiology. Improving the practice using imaging reference levels

The management of patient doses in interventional radiology (IR) is a challenging task because of the complexity of the procedures and the numerous settings available in the new x-ray and imaging systems. The International Commission on Radiological Protection has recently recognized the utility of reference levels during fluoroscopy guided procedures. This paper presents the experience in a large Spanish University Hospital implementing a quality assurance programme including the management of patient dosimetry in IR and the use of provisional local reference values (RVs) to optimize the procedures. The policy on continuing patient dose assessment permitted to maintain median kerma area product values under the provisional Spanish RVs. As a conclusion, using RVs for fluoroscopy guided procedures in our centre has been a positive experience and has permitted to audit the practice of the different radiation protection aspects during the IR procedures.