Dosimetry in patients and exposed personnel in endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreaticography

The gonadal dose for males and the radiation dose of the personnel in endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreaticography were determined. The equipment used was a DIAGNOST 70 (Philips-Mueller) with X-ray generator TuR D 1500. Doses were measured with a Kondiometer (Phys. techn. Werkstaetten Dr. Pychlau) using several cylinder and sphere chambers. The gonadal dose per investigation measured for 30 male patients was (124 +- 66) μGy or (12.4 +- 6.6) mR, what is appreciably lower than values given by other authors. It is equivalent to a dose value quoted by Radtke for oral or infusion cholegraphy. Additional measurements for smaller groups of patients allow the following conclusions: Radiation burden in the scrotal region of an image-intensifier fluorograph, screen film radiograph and one minute of fluoroscopy are related as 1:10:60. This rule of thumb can be useful for the radiologist for estimating the radiation burden. A calculation of gonadal doses using the procedure-specific mean values of doses shows an agreement by approximately 10%. The fluoroscopy dose fraction was 84% while the intensifier-fluorograms added only 5%. The values for personnel are generally lower than comparable values from the literature, except for the upper arm of the physician handling the endoscope. They are in accordance with hand doses in other types of X-ray investigations. (author)