This study was a retrospective analysis of patients with CLI who underwent infrapopliteal percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). The main goal was to evaluate clinical and morphological factors that influence the clinical outcome of PTA in long-term follow-up. A total of 1,445 PTA procedures were performed in 1,268 patients. Main indications for PTA included gangrene, nonhealing ulcers, or rest pain. The mean number of treated arteries was 1.77 artery/limb, and the majority of lesions were type TASC D. The technical success rate of PTA was 89% of intended-to-treat arteries. The main criterion of clinical success was functional limb salvage (LS). One-year follow-up involved 1,069 limbs. Primary and secondary 1-year LS rates were 76.1 and 84.4%, respectively. The effect of clinical and morphological parameters on the 1-year LS was that the only associated disease with an adverse effect on LS rate was DM combined with dialysis. Regarding limb preprocedural status, gangrene was clearly a negative predictor. The most important factor affecting LS was the number of patent arteries post-PTA: patients with 0, 1, 2, and 3 patent arteries had 1-year primary LS rates of 56.4, 73.1, 80.4, and 83%, respectively. Long-term follow-up of LS rates demonstrated secondary LS rates of 84.4, 78.8, and 73.3% at 1, 5, and 10 years. Every effort should be made to perform PTA for as many arteries as possible, even if TASC D type, to improve clinical outcome. Our study shows that repeat PTA is capable of keeping the long-term LS rate close to 75%.
The effect of the ceiling-mounted radiation shielding on the amount of the scatter radiation was assessed under conditions simulating obese patients for clinically relevant exposure parameters. Measurements were performed in different projections and with different positions of the ceiling-mounted shielding: without shielding; shielding closest to the patient; and shielding closest to the physician performing the procedure. The protection provided by the shielding was assessed for cardiology when the femoral access is used and for radiology when the physician performs the procedure in the abdominal area. The results show that the use of the ceiling-mounted shielding can decrease the dose from the scatter radiation by 95% at the position of the performing physician. In cardiology, the impact is more pronounced when the left oblique projection is used. In radiology, a large decrease was observed for right oblique projections, compared to cardiology. The ceiling-mounted shielding should be placed as close to the physician as possible. The idea of creating the largest radiation shadow by placing the radiation shielding as close to the patient as possible does not provide as effective radiation protection of the operator as it might be thought.
Despite a high correlation between MDCT and CEE measurements, CEE provides consistently lower volumes and higher LVEF. This suggests that both methods are not completely interchangeable. Reproducibility of CEE is inferior to reproducibility of MDCT, especially in non-dilated left ventricles with preserved function.
The position of the patient highly influences the functioning of the ATCM in CT imaging. The effect of different mis-centerings on the CTDIvol dose was determined during PMMA and water phantom simulations, which were also used for noise assessment. The results show that a 50 mm mis-centering (with the phantom placed above the isocenter) can cause an increase of the CTDIvol by 47 % associated with the lower standard deviation of the HU signal, whilst a -50 mm mis-centering (with the phantom placed below the isocenter) leads to a decrease of the CTDIvol by 35% and is associated with a noisier image. A mean value of the mis-centering determined for 473 patients was -43 mm. A total of 470 of 473 patients were mis-centered below the X-ray tube, which shows an inclination of radiographers to place patients below the isocenter. This inclination was more significant for smaller patients.
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