RadiatiOn Dose Among Different EndOvascular Procedures: the RODEO Study

The use fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures is progressively increasing over the past 20 years.Some previous reports have shown that the radiation dose absorbed by interventional cardiologists is the greatest registered by any medical staff exposed to X-rays. However in recent years new procedures have been introduced and validated in the setting of interventional cardiology and radiology and there is wide variation in patient dose among different procedures.

Radiation issue is an important issue for patients and operators due to the acute deterministic effects and most important for the long term stochastic risk of cancer induction: however this problem is often under-evaluated. Even if the stochastic risk is an all-or-none phenomenon for any individual cell, the greater the radiation exposure, the more cells are injured. Moreover non cancerous effects are possible such as cataract formation in the eye and the probability increases with increasing dose.

Radiation dose can be expressed in different ways: the Air Kerma is the amount of energy absorbed in a given mass of air, whereas the Dose Area Product (DAP) is the absorbed dose of radiation across a given surface area. Generally DAP measurements are more accurate than using Air Kerma measurements for the estimation of patient radiation dose as DAP allows for variations in field size. DAP consents a good estimation of the dose to the irradiated tissue and is an indicator for patient cancer risk.

Aim of our study is to evaluate the radiation dose exposure during different fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures comparing different specialties (electrophysiology, interventional radiology, interventional cardiology).

Methods From January 2013 to December 2015 all diagnostic or interventional procedures performed by interventional operators will be included in this multicenter study without exclusion criteria.