Radiation dose measurement with newly developed head phantom for interventional neuroradiology

Although it is important to measure and record radiation dose to a patient's skin, no standardized measuring method is available to compare the performance of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) systems with those of other institutions. We developed a new bidirectional information exchange system using a web page and e-mail. Measurements are obtained using an original head phantom with skin dose monitors. This system was sent to institutions ordering it from the web page. The data obtained with this system by each institution were evaluated and displayed anonymously on a graph on the web page for comparison. This method for measuring radiation dose allows the comparison of DSA systems under identical conditions. This system can alert the user that the radiation dose delivered using ordinary parameters differs from that of other institutions or DSA systems. To promote the use of this system, we developed a web page with information about radiation dose measuring and initiated an online lending operation. This head phantom and standardized measuring method allows the accurate comparison of skin radiation dose and DSA performance under the same conditions.