Investigating the Performance of X-ray Protection of Various Elements and Alloy Compounds in Aprons for Interventional Radiology.

Background: In X-ray imaging with fluoroscopy/angiography modalities, long exposure time may cause a high received dose by the physician due to the scattered photons from the patient and device. Using lead aprons significantly decreases the physician dose, but long-term disadvantages to health that are found with using this high-weight and toxic material make it interests to find alternatives. This study attempts to compare the radiation protection of different shields based on the effective physician organ doses to find the most effective radioprotection materials for each body site. Materials and Methods: Investigations on the protective efficiency of the aprons with different material compositions were performed using MCNPX Monte Carlo code to simulate the models as close as possible to a real imaging room and anthropomorphic phantoms. Results: According to the results, tungsten and its multilayer composites containing gadolinium and bismuth demonstrated the highest level of protection for all physician organs across the primary beam energy range of 80-120 kVp. Among them, the greatest reductions of radiation transmission were observed for Gd-W and Gd-W-Bi multilayers, respectively. These both were also the most effective shields for 70 kVp in lower organs but not more than Sb-W and Sn-W bilayers for upper and middle organs. Conclusion: A selection based on the used energy can be there between these four compositions due to their higher protection produced by aprons with lower thickness and lower final weight, but the same efficiency as lead garments.