The Radiological Protection Study Group of the Paulista Society of Radiology (SPR) had as its theme “Radiological Protection in Pediatric Cardiological Interventionism”, held on March 14, led by Carlos Ubeda de la Cerda, MD.

Interventional Radiology is an alternative to different surgical treatments, whose procedures are more economical, don’t cause so much pain, don’t have so many risks, and reduce the patient’s recovery time. Even so, the effects of radiation on the human body must be taken into account when adjusting the dose.

In children, such procedures can cause skin lesions, and the chances of inducing malignant tumors are two to three times higher than in the adult population.

Thus, there are international regulatory frameworks that need to be followed by physicians and staff. The main one is the safety standards stipulated by the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA): “It should be every professional’s bedside book”, said Carlos, MD.

The radiation protection system is based on three pillars: justification of practices, dose limitation, and protection optimization. One of the main tools to optimize radiation to patients would be the establishment of Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs), which indicate if, under routine conditions, the patient’s dose or the activity provided (amount of radioactive material) of a specific procedure is exceptionally high or low. However, it’s important that the professional outlines strategies before, during, and after the intervention.

To ensure compliance with the Basic International Safety Standards requirements, the OPRIPALC (Optimization of Protection in Pediatric Interventional Radiology in Latin America and the Caribbean) program was created, a joint project of the World Health Organization (WHO), Pan American Health, and IAEA.

The objective of this international initiative, unique in the world, is that children’s exposure is as little as possible but enough to obtain the necessary diagnosis.

The next steps for OPRIPALC are: increasing the patient dose sample size, engaging manufacturers to facilitate automated dose records for data collection and processing in hospitals, expanding the content of the OPRIPALC website, establishing a group of work on quality control, among others.

The presentation will soon be available on the SPR’s YouTube channel.