Healthcare professionals should no longer have to accept preventable radiation exposure and orthopedic injuries as part of their jobs in the cath labs, according to a consensus statement from six medical societies.
“For decades, we accepted occupational radiation exposure and the physical burden of heavy protective equipment as unavoidable realities of working in a fluoroscopy laboratory,” David Rizik, MD, chair of the writing group, said in a July 14 news release shared with Becker’s. “That is no longer acceptable. Technologies available today can greatly reduce radiation exposure while also addressing the orthopedic injuries associated with traditional lead protection. The question is no longer whether these solutions exist. It is whether we are willing to make protecting healthcare workers the priority it deserves. This consensus makes clear that the time for implementation is now.”
The statement, published in JSCAI, calls for hospitals, regulators and manufacturers to immediately adopt enhanced radiation protection technologies, modernize radiation safety standards, measure and report radiation safety performance using real-time dosimetry and standardized quality metrics, design safer fluoroscopy labs and procedure rooms to integrate enhanced radiation protection, and expand education and training on implementation.
The statement was endorsed by the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, the American College of Cardiology, the American Society of Echocardiography, the Heart Rhythm Society, the Society of Interventional Radiology, and the Society for Vascular Surgery.
This statement follows a similar call to action for stronger lab protections released in March by nine medical societies. Many systems are tackling radiation exposure with new techniques and equipment upgrades. At Northwestern Medicine, Mansour Razminia, MD, has not used X-ray for a single cardiac procedure in more than 16 years, all thanks to a technique that has given him the global nickname of “ICE King.”
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