Dosimetry during intramedullary nailing of the tibia

Figures & data

Table 1.  Fluoroscopy time reported in various studies

	Mean (SD) fluoroscopy time, min	Experience of primary surgeon
Muller et al. 1998 (T)	4.16
Madan and Blakeway 2002 (T)	0.56	Senior
	1.28	Middle grade
Blattert et al. 2004 (T + F)	4.43	Senior
	6.95	Junior
Hafez et al. 2005 (T + F)	2.58 (0.57)
Malek et al. 2007 (T)	2.1 (1.3)
Tsalafoutas et al. 2008 (T)	5.7 (3.5)
Current study (T)	1.19 (0.67)

T: tibial; F: femoral.

Figure 1.  Dose area product (DAP) as a function of the total fluoroscopy time.

Figure 2.  Ground plan of the operation room, with the corresponding iso-dose curves (in µSv) at a height of 1 m, for the lateral view (left panel) and posterior-anterior (PA) projection (right panel). The arrow and the cross show the tube direction and position, respectively.

Table 2.  TLD results and effective dose for the members of the operating team

TLD position	Mean TLD dose (mGy)	Effective dose per operation (mSv)
Primary surgeon	1.18	0.035
Assistant surgeon	0.74	0.022
Nurse	0.00	0.000
Equipment operator
outside apron	1.02	0.105
inside apron	0.16

Figure 3.  Measured patient entrance surface dose versus DAP values.

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