Radiation exposure to operating theatre personnel during fluoroscopic-assisted orthopaedic surgery

Orthopaedic procedures especially dynamic hip screw (DHS) fixation, interlocking nailing (ILN) of the tibia and femur require fluoroscopic assistance. Frequent exposure to radiation is a major concern to members of the orthopaedic surgical team. This study was undertaken to measure shallow (skin) dose to the operating team personnel and deep (whole body) dose to the surgeon during such procedures in view to provide guidelines to the operating team members regarding the number of procedures allowable for them to perform or assist annually. Skin dose for the operating personnel and whole body dose for the operating surgeon during 25 procedures; ten cases of DHS, seven and six cases of ILN of the tibia and femur respectively, was measured using Thermoluminescent Dosimeter (TLD) chips. The shallow radiation dose for theatre personnel ranged from 0.19 mSy to 0.61 per case while the deep dose for the surgeon was 0.28, 0.55 and 0.81 mSy for seven cases of tibial ILN, ten cases of DHS and six cases of femur ILN respectively. The surgeon has the highest radiation exposure than other theatre personnel and the whole body exposure for DHS was higher than that of for ILN. However, the estimated cumulative dose was still far below the permissible annual dose limit.