Dose displays and record keeping

In digital diagnostic and interventional radiology, patient dosimetry is essential. When considering the display requirements for interventionalists it is necessary to consider the basis for their information needs. An interventionalist must be made aware of the potential for deterministic and non-deterministic effects. Thus a display is required which provides an indication of whether skin effects are likely and this predicates a display of maximum estimated skin entrance dose. For non-deterministic effects, a display of dose-area product is useful. Unfortunately, neither display is generally available to the interventionalist, so inevitably they will remain in the dark about the potential radiological consequences of the procedure. Given the need to follow up patients, who may receive a high dose, it is important that the patient notes contain relevant dosimetry data. One way of achieving this in the future would be to link electronically the patient dosimetry device to the patient record in the Radiological Information System. This dictates a need to develop patient dosimetry record minimum dataset and equipment connectivity standards.