Proposed diagnostic reference levels for 3 common cardiac interventional procedures in Ireland

Radiation doses for 3 common types of cardiac radiological examinations where investigated: coronary angiography (CA), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and pacemaker insertions (PPI). 22 cardiac imaging suites participated in the study. Radiation dose was monitored for 1804 adult patients using dose area product (DAP) meters. Operational and examination details such as cardiologist grade, patient details and examination complexity were recorded for each examination. Both intra and inter-hospital variations where demonstrated by the results. Individual patient DAP values ranged from 136-23,101cGycm 2 , 475-41,038cGycm 2 and 45- 17,192cGycm 2 for CA, PCI and PPI respectively, with third quartile values of 4,173cGycm 2 , 8,836cGycm 2 and 2,051cGycm 2 . Screening times varied from 0.22-27.6mins, 1.8-98mins and 0.33-54.5mins for CA, PCI and PPI respectively.