Background: The “Biological effects of Ionizing Radiation” (BEIR VII,2005) underlines “the need of studies of infants who are exposed to diagnostic radiation”.
Aim: to assess the individual cumulative lifetime radiological dose in grown up congenital heart disease (GUCH) patients.
Methods: In 41 consecutive operated GUCH patient (24 males, age= 27 ± 9 years old), followed in our outpatient clinic, a cumulative radiological history was collected with a structured questionnaire and access to lifetime hospital records. All patient underwent at least one surgical intervention during the infancy for Tetralogy of Fallot (n=18), aortic coarctation (n=10), anatomical/functional univentricular heart (n=8), other congenital heart disease (n=5) The cumulative exposure was expressed in milliSievert (mSv) and derived from average effective dose estimates of individual examinations proposed by the European Commission Medical Imaging Guidelines (2001). The attributable cancer risk was estimated from BEIR VII, 2005 document.
Results: On average, cumulative dose estimate was 22.3 ± 12.4 (mean ± SD) mSv per patient, equivalent to about 1115 ± 620 chest x-rays. Diagnostic and interventional catheterization accounted for the most important sources of exposure (see figure
). The median cumulative dose gave an average extra-risk of cancer of about 1 out of 200 patients (range, 1 in 448 to 1 out of 58).
Conclusion: the average contemporary GUCH patient is exposed to a significant cumulative radiological effective dose. Every effort should be done to justify the indications and to optimise dose delivery during ionizing testing.
