Patient radiation doses in paediatric interventional cardiology and optimization actions

This work presents patient radiation dose data for paediatric interventional cardiology procedures in a large paediatric hospital in Chile. This will contribute to setting national diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) for Chile in the near future. The dosimetric data collection period was from January 2018 to December 2018. The local DRLs were calculated as the 3rd quartile of patient dose data distributions for kerma area-product (P_ka) values. The sample of collected clinical procedures (261) was divided into diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and grouped into five weight bands. The P_ka differences found between diagnostic and therapeutic procedures were not statistically significant when comparing the same weight bands, as a result of which we propose a single DRL value for both types of procedure. The local DRLs were 4.9 Gy cm² (<5 kg), 6.6 Gy cm² (5-<15 kg), 13.7 Gy cm² (15-<30 kg), 30.7 Gy cm² (30-<50 kg) and 29.7 Gy cm² (50-<80 kg), respectively. The conclusion from comparing our results with other existing DRL values is that there is ample scope to continue optimizing by reducing patient dose values. Equipment performance, settings used and examination protocols should be reviewed as corrective actions and adapted to patient weight.