Possibilities of reducing the radiation dose to patients in the cardiac catheterization laboratory

There are possible approaches to radiation dose reduction in cardiac catheterization, both for the operational modus of fluoroscopy and cinematography. An initial study in 15 patients treated with diagnostic cardiac catheterization or PTCA has shown that the cine-technique contributes at least half of the dose-area product accumulated during the entire examination. The radiation dose administered by the cinematographic technique per minute of diagnostic examination is approx. between 5 times and 13 times higher than the dose contributed by fluoroscopy. The paper discusses various possibilities of dose reduction. Studies performed by the authors have shown that additional 0.3 copper filters will reduce the dose to the skin to less than half of the usually applied skin dose. (orig.)