Presenter: Eliseo Vano, Gabriel Bartal
Date of broadcast: 16 January 2020, 3 pm CET (check your corresponding time)
Organized jointly with the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) and the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP)
About the webinar
It is well recognized that clinical benefits of interventional procedures in patients are much higher than radiation risks. Radiation risks should be quantified and reduced as much as possible, maintaining the clinical benefits.
Occupational radiation risks, especially the risk of cataracts, should be considered when planning interventional practices, but also during the design of catheterization laboratories, the appropriate selection of the X-ray systems, the availability of radiation protection tools, and the training in radiation protection for all the staff involved. It is still a challenge to get realistic occupational dose values as, in many cases, not all professionals working in catheterization laboratories regularly wear their personal dosimeters. International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends an integral approach to radiation protection for patients and staff. The new automatic systems to manage patient doses (and sometimes, occupational doses) allow a real time optimization with a continuous audit of the dosimetric indicators.
During the webinar, priorities for the optimization actions and the collaboration of all the actors in the interventional team (including the medical physicists, when and if available) will be discussed by an interventionalist and a medical physicist.
Learning objectives
- To identify the radiation protection priorities for patients and staff in interventional radiology based on current recommendations of the professional societies
- To describe the benefits of having an advice of a medical physicist for the interventional team.
- To highlight the importance of an integral approach (patient and staff) to optimize the radiation protection in interventional procedures.
About the presenters
Prof. Eliseo Vano is an Emeritus Professor of Medical Physics at the Radiology Department of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Prof. Vano was a member of ICRP and the Chair of the Committee on Radiation Protection in Medicine. He has been involved in several radiation protection activities of UNSCEAR, IAEA, EURATOM and WHO. Prof Vano is an author of many publications dealing with radiation protection for Interventional Radiology.
Dr. Gabriel Bartal is an interventional radiologist, former Director of the Department of Medical Imaging and Interventional Radiology at Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba, affiliated to Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv Israel. Dr. Bartal is a President of the Israeli Society of Interventional Radiology, Distinguished Fellow of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Society of Europe (CIRSE) and a Fellow of the North American Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR). He is an active member of Radiation Protection subcommittee of CIRSE and involved in several European projects on behalf of CIRSE. He is also involved in research and developments of clinical methods in dose management and radiation protection and co-author of book chapters, publications and professional guidelines in the field of patient and staff radiation safety in image guided interventions.