Guidance on personal dosimetry for occupational exposure in interventional radiology

During examinations that involve significant levels of exposure, radiology staff wear protective aprons and move towards various exposure orientations. The resulting body exposure is extremely non-uniform. Under such conditions the partially unshielded organs in the trunk together with tissues and organs in the head and neck region determine the effective dose equivalent. In principle, the same will be true for the newly introduced primary quantity effective dose. New calculations are required for quantitative assessments, because the selection of relevant organs and their weighting factors were changed. In this paper we describe our calculations and present and discuss conversion factors for the assessment of effective dose in typical exposure situations for radiology staff in interventional radiology.