Patient Exposure During Radiological Procedures

Can skin damage from IVR procedures and radiological examinations be prevented?

Skin damage can be prevented through extra care and effort by medical personnel.

In the past, the main examples of accidents occurred include hair loss matching the patient exposure area due to operating errors (simple errors) during CT imaging of perfusion and skin damages such as skin ulcers after IVR procedures. Improvements were made for CT operating errors using the same techniques as for preventing medical accidents, which has resulted in no recent reports of such errors. Avoiding skin damage during IVR procedures requires extra care and effort by medical personnel. Basically, it involves ensuring that basic measures to reduce patient exposure dose levels (see the question "What is an effective way to reduce patient exposure dose levels during IVR procedures?") are actually implemented. Time-outs are taken and the person in charge cautions the operator when the patient skin dose level reaches 3 grays or more. If the dose reaches 5 grays, the patient is informed of that fact, precautions for their daily life and the need to receive another examination are explained (Reference material: Guidelines for Preventing Skin Damage from Radiation During IVR Procedures—Q&A and Discussion ; Japan Association on Radiological Protection in Medicine) . If damage progresses to the extent that ulceration occurs, then a skin graft is required. There are also reports of damage progressing to point of bone exposure, so it requires that operators have the ability to make rational and objective decisions.