Radiation protection in pediatric interventional cardiology: An IAEA PILOT program in Latin America

The aim of this work is to present a methodology and some initial results for a pilot program on radiation protection (RP) in pediatric interventional cardiology under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The starting point of the program was a workshop involving several pediatric cardiologists leading this specialty in 11 Latin American countries. The workshop included a pilot RP training course and additional sessions during which the objectives of the program and the methodology to collect and process data on patient and staff radiation doses were discussed. Special attention was dedicated to agree on a common quality control (QC) protocol for the x-ray and imaging systems used in the different catheterization laboratories. The preliminary data showed that only 64% of the cardiologists used their personal dosimeters regularly and that only 36% were aware of their personal dose values. The data on pediatric interventional activity were collected from 10 centers from nine different countries. A total of 2,429 procedures (50% diagnostic and 50% therapeutic) were carried out during 2009 in these centers. Patient dose data were available in only a few centers and were not analyzed on a regular basis in any of the catheterization laboratories involved. Plans were developed for a basic QC protocol of the x-ray systems and construction of a Latin American database on pediatric cardiology with patient and staff dose values with the idea in mind of obtaining distributions of these dose values before promoting several optimization strategies.