Teste | Abstract: 157-2 | ||||
Abstract:Angiography equipment offer three dose rate options, low, normal, and high. Although the equipment is usually preset with the normal mode at commissioning, proper selection of the dose rate mode by the operator is essential to optimize the Fluoroscopically guided interventional (FGI) procedures while minimizing the risks associated with ionizing radiation (Li et al., 2020). To reduce both the need for operator intervention during FGI procedures and the patient's exposure to ionizing radiation, in this study was tested the internal setup of an angiography equipment to automatically select the low dose rate mode instead the normal mode before the start of procedures. We analyzed 267 dose reports from FGI before and after changing the equipment's original default setting. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test was applied with an α significance level of 0.05 to determine whether the modification ensured a significant reduction in patient exposure to ionizing radiation. In addition, an assessment was made of the clinical team's perception of image quality after changing the equipment configuration. A significant reduction in maximum entrance skin dose and air kerma-area product was observed in the FGI procedures performed using low dose rate. No significant differences in total fluoroscopy time, exposures and perceptions of the clinical staff regarding image quality after the change to the equipment setup were observed. Changing the angiography equipment configuration is a viable strategy to reduce patient exposure to ionizing radiation during FGI procedures while maintaining image quality. Keywords: Image Guided Fluoroscopy, Ionizing Radiation, Angiography , Kerma, Low Dose Rate Mode |