Radiation dose and risk to children undergoing cardiac catheterization for the treatment of a congenital heart disease using Monte Carlo simulations

Background and objective: Children diagnosed with congenital heart disease often undergo cardiac catheterization for their treatment, which involves the use of ionizing radiation and therefore a risk of radiation induced cancer. Our objective was to calculate the effective (E) and equivalent organ doses (HT) in those children and estimate the risk of radiation induced cancer (REID). Materials and methods: Fifty three children were divided into three groups, atrial septal defect (ASD), ventricular septal defect (VSD), and patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), depending on their heart condition. In all procedures, the exposure conditions and the Dose-Area Product (DAP) meters readings were recorded for each individual acquisition. Monte Carlo simulations were run using the PCXMC 2.0 code and mathematical phantoms simulating children anatomy. The HT values to all irradiated organs and the resulting E and REID values were calculated. Results: The average DAP values were respectively 40±12 Gy·cm2 for the ASD, 17.5±0.7 Gy·cm2 for the VSD and 9.5±1 Gy·cm2 for the PDA group. The average E values were 40±12, 22±2.5 and 17±3.6 mSv for ASD, VSD and PDA groups, respectively. The respective estimated REID values per procedure were 0.109, 0.106 and 0.067 %. For all groups the most heavily irradiated organs were the thymus, heart, breast, lung and stomach. (authors)