SESAME: A TOOL FOR NUMERICAL DOSIMETRIC RECONSTRUCTION OF PATIENTS OVEREXPOSURES IN INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY.

ABSTRACT

Radiation overexposure accidents are rare but can have severe health consequences. Evaluating the dose received by the patient is a crucial step in the medical management. For that purpose, for more than 15 years, IRSN has been developing an in-house tool named SESAME for the numerical reconstruction of radiological accidents due to external sources. Recently, two new functionalities were implemented in SESAME to allow accurate reconstructions of interventional radiology (IR) overexposures. The experimental validation of SESAME for the reconstruction of overexposures in IR is presented. First, an anthropomorphic dummy equipped with dosemeters was irradiated following conditions similar to a fluoroscopically guided interventional procedure. Then the procedure was simulated using SESAME. Finally measured doses were compared to calculated doses. Even with a limited amount of data available, SESAME can provide valuable dose information for the medical team in charge of the patient, such as skin dose mapping and dose distribution in depth.