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Updated: Apr 20, 2026
X-ray Dose Reduction through Adaptive Exposure in Fluoroscopic Imaging
Published on: September 11, 2011
Real-time dosimetry reduces radiation exposure of orthopaedic surgeons
M C Müller1, K Welle1, A Strauss1
1Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, University Hospital of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Strasse 25, 53105 Bonn, Germany.
Background:
Cancer prevalence of orthopaedic surgeons is elevated and chronic exposure to occupational ionizing radiation is seen as one reason.
Hypothesis:
Use of a new dosimeter enabling radiation dose monitoring in real-time may reduce radiation exposure of orthopaedic surgeons.
Materials And Methods:
Over a period of four months, the surgeon and the C-arm operator were equipped with a novel dosimeter called DoseAware(®) (DA) while using the C-arm fluoroscope intraoperatively. Data of 68 patients DA were retrospectively compared using matched-pair analysis with 68 controls without DA. Both groups were assessed regarding fluoroscopic time (FT) and radiation dose (RD). Seven types of operative procedures were performed: internal fixation of subcapital humerus fractures, midshaft clavicular fractures, distal radius fractures, pertrochanteric femoral fractures, ankle fractures, traumatic vertebral fractures and osteoporotic vertebral fractures.
Results:
Concerning the FT, use of DoseAware(®) led to a significant reduction for all evaluated operation types except for internal fixation of distal radius fractures (P=0.0511). Regarding the RD, use of DoseAware(®) led to a significant reduction for all evaluated operation types except trochanteric femoral fractures with a PFNA(®) (P=0.0841).
Conclusion:
DoseAware(®) allowing real-time radiation dose monitoring reduces radiation exposure of the orthopaedic surgeon and instantly demonstrates the effects of dose-reduction techniques.
Level Of Evidence:
Level III retrospective case control study.
