Trauma surgery and risk of radiation injury to patients

Abstract

Image intensifiers are widely used in orthopaedic trauma surgery. Since beginning of fluoroscopy use, concerns have been raised regarding the radiation risks to the patients and the theatre staff in these operations. The radiation risks are classified into two types, stochastic and deterministic risks. Effective dose (ED) and skin dose (SD) values were derived from dose area product (DAP) values and used to quantify the stochastic and deterministic risks, respectively. Patients (670) who had dynamic hip screw (DHS) fixation, cannulated hip screw (CHS) fixation, intra-medullary nailing (IMN) of femur and tibia were included in the study. ED values were 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 and 0.01 mSv and stochastic risks were 3 × 10−5, 6 × 10−5, 9 × 10−5 and 1 × 10−6 for DHS, CHS, IMN of femur and IMN of tibia, respectively. Maximum SD values were 36, 65, 100 and 46 mGy which were only 2, 3, 5 and 2% of threshold dose for temporary skin erythema (2 Gy) in DHS, CHS, IMN of femur and IMN of tibia operations. The radiation exposure in these operations was very low compared to common intervention radiology procedures. The study concludes that the risk of radiation injury in lower limb trauma surgery is extremely small. The radiation doses to patients are within maximum permissible dose (MPD) limits recommended by International Commission on Radiological Protection.