ABSTRACT
Currently there are limited diagnostic reference level (DRL) data for South African (SA) public sector cardiac fluoroscopy-guided procedures (FGPs). A 4-y retrospective study of dosimetric data on 6265 patients determined typical values (50th percentile) of dosimetric data for the seven most frequent cardiac FGPs at a SA teaching hospital. Kerma-area-product (KAP), reference point air Kerma (Ka,r) and fluoroscopy time (FT) were, respectively, calculated for coronary angiography (CA) (n = 1935; 61Gy.cm2, 624 mGy, 5 min); CA with left ventriculography (n = 1687; 85Gy.cm2, 840 mGy, 3.9 min), valve screening (n = 129; 6Gy.cm2, 164 mGy, 2.3 min), percutaneous coronary intervention (n = 1922; 145Gy.cm2, 1569 mGy, 11.9 min), pacemaker implantation (n = 432; 9Gy.cm2, 100 mGy, 6.5 min), pericardial tap (n = 115; 1.9Gy.cm2, 18 mGy, 1.5 min) and transcatheter aortic valve implantation (n = 45; 65Gy.cm2, 658 mGy, 14.1 min). This work presents the largest SA public sector cardiac FGP dosimetric data to date and provides a key resource for future work in this domain.
