A radioactive source is usually replaced and disposed after being used for a certain amount of time (usually a half-life). In this study, a simple method is proposed to prolong its service life. Instead of replacing the used source with a new source of full activity, a new source of less activity is added in the source holder in front of the used one, so that the total activity of two sources i...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Coronary angiography (CAG) is the gold standard for diagnosing coronary artery disease. However, exposure to ionizing radiation delivered during CAG has various negative biological effects on humans. In this study, there was an evaluation of whether fluorography resulted in decreased radiation exposure, as compared with cineangiography. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Fifty-fiv...

The aim of the present study was to estimate the wall effect of the self-made spherical graphite-walled cavity chamber with the Monte Carlo method for establishing the air-kerma primary standard of high-dose-rate (HDR) ¹⁹²Ir brachytherapy sources at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER, Taiwan). The Monte Carlo method established in this paper was also employed to respectively simulat...

Coronary angiography (CA) procedure uses various angiographic projections to elicit detailed information of the coronary arteries with some steep projections involving high radiation dose to patients. This study intends to evaluate radiation doses and estimated risk from angiographic projections during CA procedure performed using novel flat detector (FD) system with improved image processing a...

A guarded cylindrical graphite ionization chamber of nominal volume 1000 cm3 was designed and fabricated for use as a reference standard for low-dose rate 137Cs brachytherapy sources. The air kerma calibration coefficient (N(K)) of this ionization chamber was estimated analytically using Burlin's general cavity theory, as well as by the Monte Carlo simulation and validated experimentally using ...

To assess patient radiation during catheter ablation procedures and operator differences. From 84 patients (51 males, age 63 ± 10 years) undergoing complex catheter ablation by three experienced operators we collected: body mass index (BMI), procedure type and time, fluoroscopy time, dose area product (DAP), air kerma and X-ray system setting (cine, collimation and angiographic imaging angle). ...

The objective of this study was to estimate the French national updated reference levels (RLs) for coronary angiography (CA) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) by a dose audit from a large data set of unselected procedures and in standard-sized patients. Kerma-area product (PKA), air kerma at interventional point (Ka,r), fluoroscopy time (FT), and the number of registered frames (NFs)...

A comparison was made between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Ente per le Nuove Tecnologie l'Energia e l'Ambiente (ENEA) air kerma standards for medium energy x rays and 60Co gamma rays. The comparison took place at ENEA in June 1994. Two different transfer chambers from NIST were used for the comparison. The measurements were made at radiation qualities similar to...

A comprehensive review for the in-air calibration of an Ir-192 high-dose-rate brachytherapy source in terms of air kerma strength (AKS) and reference air kerma rate (RAKR) using the Farmer chamber was conducted. The reviewed calibration methods include the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) calibration standard in the UK, the 7-distance technique with the standard calibration of the National In...