Contribution of interventional cardiology to the collective dose in Spain.

Introduction And Objectives: To estimate the contribution of interventional cardiology (IC) to the collective dose in Spain.

Methods: Using the information on frequencies of examinations sourced from the Spanish Society of Cardiology and the patient dose values obtained by the national DOCCACI programme.

Results: The fraction of the collective dose per million inhabitants derived from IC was 34 man-Sv (a total of 1600 man-Sv in Spain with 46.

Objective criteria for acceptability and constancy tests of digital subtraction angiography.

Purpose: Demonstrate an objective procedure to quantify image quality in digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and suggest thresholds for acceptability and constancy tests.

Methods: Series of images were obtained in a DSA system simulating a small (paediatric) and a large patient using the dynamic phantom described in the IEC and DIN standards for acceptance tests of DSA equipment. Image quality was quantified using measurements of contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR).