Assessment of scatter radiation dose received by comforters and carers during digital breast tomosynthesis mammography

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Authors

Michelle Kostidis¹ , Peter Barnes¹ , Joshua Varcoe²

1. Austin Health
2. Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

Conference / event

Research Fest Austin Health 2022, October 2022 (Virtual)

Poster summary

Mammographic imaging can cause considerable stress and anxiety for some patients and may require someone to remain in the room during the procedure to provide both physical and emotional support. As such, these comforters and carers (C&C) are exposed to ionising radiation. Limited evidence is available stating the radiation dose received during a digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) examination. This research aims to determine the optimal standing position for a C&C in the mammography room during a DBT mammogram that results in the lowest radiation dose, whilst providing high-quality imaging, care and comfort to the patient.

Keywords

Mammography, Tomosynthesis, Radiation risk, Carer, Safety, Dose

Research areas

Medical Imaging, Physics

References

1. Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) 2019. Code for Radiation Protection in Medical Exposure. Radiation Protection Series C-5.
2. STEP Sensortechnik und Elektronik Pockau GmbH. Technical description and operating instructions - Survey meter OD-02. 2016
3. American College of Radiology, BI-RADS Committee. ACR BI-RADS atlas breast imaging and reporting data system. 2013.
4. ARPANSA. Ionising radiation in our everyday environment. ARPANSA; 2021

Funding

No data provided

Supplemental files

No data provided

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests were disclosed.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and / or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 Kostidis et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.