COMPARING MEASURED AND CALCULATED DOSES IN INTERVENTIONAL CARDIOLOGY PROCEDURES.

Abstract

Interventional cardiology requires complex procedures and can result in high doses and dose rates to the patient and medical staff. The many variables that influence the dose to the patient and staff include the beam position and angle, beam size, kVp, filtration, kerma-area product and focus-skin distance. A number of studies using the Monte Carlo method have been undertaken to obtain prospective dose assessments. In this paper, detailed irradiation scenarios were simulated mathematically and the resulting dose estimates were compared with real measurements made previously under very similar irradiation conditions and geometries. The real measurements and the calculated doses were carried out using or simulating an interventional cardiology system with a flat monoplane detector installed in a dedicated room with an Alderson phantom placed on the procedure table. The X-ray spectra, beam angles, focus-skin distance, measured kerma-area product and filtration were simulated, and the real dose measurements and calculated doses were compared. It was shown that the Monte Carlo method was capable of reproducing the real dose measurements within acceptable levels of uncertainty.