[P035] Dose optimization in pediatric interventional cardiology

Purpose The present study aims to determine radiation dose as well as to estimate the effective dose, in a large number of pediatric interventional cardiology diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, in the context of the optimization of radiation protection. Methods Data from 477 cases have been grouped in diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, according to patient age; Four age groups were used: less than one year old, between 1 and 5 years old, more than 5 to 10 years old and more than 10 to 16 years old. Kerma Area Product P KA , fluoroscopy time and the number of images were recorded and effective doses were calculated using appropriate conversion factors. Results The recorded median P KA values are 2 and 1.8, 3 and 3.6, 6 and 7, 12.4 and 11.5 Gycm 2 respectively, for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and for the four age groups. The respective median estimated values for the effective dose are 7.4 and 6.6, 5.8 and 5.4, 6.8 and 7.1 and 7.6 and 6.8 mSv. The difference between the median P KA values for the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures falls within the statistical variation though there are differences in the maximum values on individual basis. The same observation stands for the estimated values of the effective dose. Moreover, the P KA values are increased as the age is increasing. However, this is not the case for the effective dose values which seem to be stable throughout the age range of the patients. The last observation should not mistakenly lead to the conclusion that the effective dose is the same for all age groups, since some maximum P KA and effective dose values in complex therapeutic procedures are very high. Conclusions In conclusion, it is underlined that though it seems that there is no statistically significant difference between diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for the P KA values and for the estimated values of the effective dose across the age groups examined, there can be specific cases which calls out attention from radiation protection point of view, where the principle of optimization should be strongly implemented.