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PURPOSE: Nuclear cardiology is widely used to diagnose coronary artery disease and to guide patient management, but data on current practices, radiation dose-related best practices, and radiation doses are scarce. To address these issues, the IAEA conducted a worldwide study of nuclear cardiology practice. We present the European subanalysis. METHODS: In March 2013, the IAEA invited laboratories across the world to document all SPECT and PET studies performed in one week. The data included age, gender, weight, radiopharmaceuticals, injected activities, camera type, positioning, hardware and software. Radiation effective dose was calculated for each patient. A quality score was defined for each laboratory as the number followed of eight predefined best practices with a bearing on radiation exposure (range of quality score 0 - 8). The participating European countries were assigned to regions (North, East, South, and West). Comparisons were performed between the four European regions and between Europe and the rest-of-the-world (RoW). RESULTS: Data on 2,381 European patients undergoing nuclear cardiology procedures in 102 laboratories in 27 countries were collected. A cardiac SPECT study was performed in 97.9 % of the patients, and a PET study in 2.1 %. The average effective dose of SPECT was 8.0 ± 3.4 mSv (RoW 11.4 ± 4.3 mSv; P 

Original publication

DOI

10.1007/s00259-015-3270-8

Type

Journal article

Journal

Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging

Publication Date

04/2016

Volume

43

Pages

718 - 728

Keywords

Best practices, Europe, Myocardial perfusion scintigraphy, Nuclear cardiology, PET, Quality of care, Radiation dose, SPECT, Cardiac Imaging Techniques, Cardiology, European Union, Nuclear Medicine, Positron-Emission Tomography, Practice Guidelines as Topic, Radiation Dosage, Societies, Scientific