Retrospective study of patients radiation dose during cardiac catheterization procedures

Objective: Cardiac catheterization procedures provide tremendous benefits to modern healthcare and the benefit derived by the patient should far outweigh the radiation risk associated with a properly optimized procedure. With increasing utilization of such procedures, there is growing concern regarding the magnitude and variations of dose to patients associated with procedure complexity and techniques parameters. Therefore, this study investigated radiation dose to patients from six cardiac catheterization procedures at our facility and suggest possible initial dose values for benchmark for patient radiation dose from these procedures. This initial benchmark data will be used for clinical radiation dose management which is essential for assessing the impact of any quality improvement initiatives in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the dose parameters of 1000 patients who underwent various cardiac catheterization procedures: left heart catheterization (LH), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), complex PCI, LH with complex PCI, LH with PCI and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) pacemaker in our cardiac catheterization laboratories. Patient’s clinical radiation dose data [kerma–area–product (KAP) and air-kerma at the interventional reference point (Ka,r)] and technique parameters (fluoroscopy time, tube potential, current, pulse width and number of cine images) along with demographic information (age, height and weight) were collected from the hospital’s RIS (Synapse), Sensis/Syngo Dynamics and Siemens Sensis Stats Manager electronic database. Statistical analysis was performed with the IBM SPSS Modeler v. 18.1 software. Results: The overall patient median age was 67.0 (range: 26.0–97.0) years and the median body mass index (BMI) was 28.8 (range: 15.9–61.7) kg/m2 . The median KAP for the LH, PCI, LH with complex PCI, complex PCI, LH with PCI and CRT-pacemaker procedures are 44.4 (4.1–203.2), 80.2 (18.9–208.5), 83.7 (48.0–246.1), 113.8 (60.9–284.5), 91.7 (6.0–426.0) and 51.1 (7.0–175.9) Gy-cm2 . The median Ka,r for the LH, PCI, LH with complex PCI, complex PCI, LH with PCI and CRT-pacemaker procedures are 701.0 (35.3–3794.0), 1384.7 (291.7–4021.8), 1607.0 (883.5–4448.3), 2260.2 (867.4–5311.9), 1589.3 (100.2–7237.4) and 463.8 (67.7–1695.9) mGy respectively. Conclusion: We have analyzed patient radiation doses from six commonly used procedures in our cardiac catheterization laboratories and suggested possible initial values for benchmark from these procedures for the fluoroscopy time, KAP and air-kerma at the interventional reference point based on our current practices. Our data compare well with published values reported in the literature by investigators who have also studied patient doses and established benchmark dose levels for their facilities. Procedure-specific benchmark dose data for various groups of patients can provide the motivation for monitoring practices to promote improvements in patient radiation dose optimization in the cardiac catheterization laboratories. Advances in knowledge: We have investigated local patients’ radiation doses and established benchmark radiation data which are essential for assessing the impact of any quality improvement initiatives for radiation dose optimization.