Quality Improvement Guidelines for Recording Patient Radiation Dose in the Medical Record for Fluoroscopically Guided Procedures

Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms

“…316 According to National Council on Radiation Protection guidelines, each procedure should be justified according to the medical goal accomplished, and specific patient follow-up for radiation injury is necessary. 317 In the future, trials and registries used to assess cerebral aneurysm treatment should include measures of patient radiation exposure. Finally, the procedural risks of radiation exposure encountered in endovascular aneurysm treatment should be included and specifically reviewed in any procedural consent.…”

Approaches to Enhancing Radiation Safety in Cardiovascular Imaging

“…Public availability of radiation exposure data in the form of databases would allow imaging centers or users to compare radiation exposure descriptors from their practices with regional, national, and international values for the purpose of quality control and improvement. 74 The provision of this type of feedback, in conjunction with educational initiatives, has been shown to effectively promote implementation of best practices and safer use of cardiac imaging. 83,84 Additional data reporting regarding exposure levels that put patients at risk for deterministic injuries is also needed.…”

“…26,74 Periodic audits and appropriate performance testing by a qualified medical physicist are necessary for optimized clinical functionality of imaging equipment. These evaluations are necessarily more extensive than the minimal testing required for compliance with regulatory safety limits.…”

Patient Dose Audit using Interventional and Conventional Radiograph

“…This showed an increased in doses delivered by as much as 8 times that of a conventional dose, which would see the need for optimization. However, when calculating the effective doses of the organs in these individual examinations they were well below the dose limit, but tracking the patient's doses over time can lead to that exposure level getting closer therefore the method developed in this study to track patient dose can be used as a means to protect patients and as future reference for similar studies and comparison and further establishing and strengthening of the institutionally based Diagnostic Reference levels (DRLs) [27]. The resultant dose profiles of the four (4) examinations revealed the dose delivery and its spread across the collimated area.…”