To visualise the coronary arteries, a catheter is advanced through the aorta via either an artery in the arm (radial artery) or the common femoral artery in the groin.  Due to the reduced risk of post-procedure vascular complications, there has been a strong move towards radial access as the preferred option.

There have been conflicting reports of x-ray dose implications due to the choice of access point. This single centre, prospective, observational research investigates any potential disparities in patient radiation dose resulting from the radial or femoral approach.  Differences in dose levels measured at the left temple of the cardiologist, scrub nurse and scout nurse were also examined.

This dataset was produced as part of Kelly Wilson-Stewart's PhD, 'Factors which influence occupational radiation head and eye dose to in-room personnel during angiographic procedures'. 

Kelly's Ph.D. project aims to quantify the levels of temple dose to staff during diagnostic and interventional cardiac and endovascular procedures utilising fluoroscopy.  An additional focus will be placed on reporting on factors that may influence occupational dose levels to nurses and other in-room staff.

The following people were involved in the supervision of this project design and manuscript prepration:

Davide Fontanarosa:

• School of Clinical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia
• Centre for Biomedical Technologies (CBT), Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia

Jamie V. Trapp:

• School of Chemistry and Physics, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia

The following person was involved in statistical analysis, data curation and manuscript preparation:

Eva Malacova:

• QMIR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, 200 Herston Road, Herston, QLD, 4006, Australia
• Centre for Biomedical Technologies (CBT), Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia

The data owner would like to thank her nursing, radiography, and medical colleagues from the cardio-vascular suites at Greenslopes Private Hospital for their contributions towards data collection during this research. The data owner gratefully also acknowledges the support provided by the Australian Commonwealth Government in the form of a research stipend.