Patient doses in cardiac catheterisation in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

Interventional radiology is an area of medicine that uses ionising radiation to assist physicians in performing some procedures. Among these procedures, cardiac catheterisation stands out as one of the ones responsible for the highest patients’ doses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the averages of the Kerma Area Product (KAP) for cardiac catheterisation procedures registered in the compulsory registration system for medical expositions in Santa Catarina state (SIERI) during the years 2016 and 2017 and compare them with the KAP values obtained in other countries. From the total analysed procedures, 71.4% were performed in men and 28.6% in women. The mean KAP for men was between 39.0 and 46.7 Gy cm2 and between 36.7 and 41.3 Gy cm2 for women. For the 25 institutions analysed, the average KAP was between 8.48 and 84.0 Gy cm2, values within this range were found in studies conducted in other countries. The SIERI system is functioning properly for the registration of patient doses and KAP values, in general, were within the average values presented in the work done in several countries.