Complex interventional radiology (IR) procedures deliver high radiation doses to patients. This may result in skin injury inducted by exceeding deterministic effects threshold. Monitoring and mapping the radiation entrance to the patients is very important to secure patients from medical follow up in case of radiation injury. Basing only on the dose area product (DAP) meters, commonly used in haemodynamic centers, it is impossible to obtain sufficient information about entrance skin dose (ESD) and dose distribution on a patient skin. From this point of view, application of other types of detectors e.g. radiochromic films is suggested.
A Gafchromic XR-RV2 film was tested to determine its potential usage for patient skin dose and dose distribution monitoring in a fluoroscopically guided interventional radiology procedures. Films’ dosimetric characteristic i.e. dose, dose rate, energy and time dependencies in the applied range, were tested. The dose response in different color components of standard RGB color space image and film positioning during scanning were also determined.
This work shows that radiochromic films are a simple and pretty useful method that leads to localize and estimating patients’ skin dose received during interventional radiology procedures. These films can be an alternative for the wellknown dosimetric methods.