With DoseWise Portal, used in concert with DoseAware Xtend, you can protect staff from unnecessary scatter radiation. The platform provides real-time feedback to staff and management to quantitatively track, record, analyze and demonstrate the impact of your efforts—putting radiation exposure in your control to improve staff safety.
The patient and table are the largest source of scatter radiation (staff dose). Staff dose is expressed in millisieverts (mSv) is determined from measurements of external ionizing radiation on various types of human tissue. All occupational limits are expressed in mSv with 20mSv per year, being the maximum for medical personnel in EU and 50 mSv per year in the US.
You and your staff can take control of radiation exposure by managing the effects of:
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Shielding
Logically, lead protection has a large impact on scatter reduction. Be sure to consider eyewear too.
Distance
Like shielding, increasing distance from the patient can greatly reduce exposure to scatter radiation. Move away from the source when you can.
Fluoro settings
Maintain proper fluoroscopy parameter settings with respect to the size of the patient. This may help improve image quality at low dose.
Angulation (tube position)
Stand on the “detector” side of the equipment when using fluoro. Radiation bounces off the patient entry point and reflects into the staff. This “scatter radiation” is much less on the detector side as the patient effectively shields staff from some radiation.
Field of view (FOV)
If you zoom in to a smaller FOV the amount of scatter radiation is moderately reduced. Patient dose does increase a bit.
Collimation
One of the best and easiest ways to reduce scatter radiation is to collimate. It simply produces less scatter for your staff and helps the patient too.
Considered together, these actions taken by your staff can make a difference. Over time, dose trends can be identified and best practices established or anomalies corrected.
DoseAware knows when a patient is on the table and synchronizes start dose — then automatically exports to DoseWise Portal at the end of the procedure. DoseWise Portal receives data for each procedure and every staff member (up to eight) involved in that procedure. By gaining easy access to detailed dose performance through reports and analytics, you can establish a strong institution-wide dose management program.
| | Influence AK ref point | Effect on staff dose | Involves staff behavior |
| Lead protection | no (0) | large (++) | yes |
| Take distance | no (0) | large (++) | yes |
| Fluoro I, II, III | yes (+) | minimal (-) | yes |
| Tube position/angulation | large (++) | large (++) | yes |
| Adjust FOV | minimal (+) | moderate (+) | yes |
| Collimation | no (0) | moderate (+) | yes |
Before you even begin an interventional procedure it is important to choose the right application setting on the angio system. This determines, in large part, the X-ray dose to the patient and has an impact on scatter radiation. Choose carefully.
| | low | medium | high | |
| Neuro | 1 | 3 | 7 | R/min |
| Peripheral | 1 | 3 | 7 | R/min |
| Abdominal | 1 | 3 | 7 | R/min |
| Vascular | 1 | 3 | 7 | R/min |
| EP | 0.5 | 1 | 2 | R/min |
| Cardio | 2.5 | 5 | 9 | R/min |
