• Seung Hee Yoo, Won-Joong Kim, Mi Jin Jue, and Min Jin Lee.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Jul 8; 101 (27): e29684e29684.

BackgroundLumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections are used widely to alleviate low back radicular pain, but it requires real-time fluoroscopy, which can increase the risk of radiation exposure. Anteroposterior or lateral real-time fluoroscopy can be used during lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections, but there have been no comparative studies on the exposure of physicians to radiation from anteroposterior or lateral real-time fluoroscopy. The aim of this study was to compare the cumulative radiation exposure to each body part of the physician according to the method of real-time fluoroscopy when performing lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections.MethodsA single physician performed lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections, and 2 groups of patients were formed based on the method used: group A (anteroposterior real-time fluoroscopy) and group L (lateral real-time fluoroscopy). Dosimeters were placed outside the chest, inside the chest, outside the thyroid collar, inside the thyroid collar, outside the groin, inside the groin, outside the lead gloves, and left rim of the glasses.ResultsA total of 200 lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections were analyzed, and the radiation exposure was measured by cumulative dose equivalents in mSv. The dose equivalents were lower at every level in group A compared with group L except for outside the groin.ConclusionsThe cumulative radiation exposure at all the measurement sites was lower for anteroposterior real-time fluoroscopy compared with lateral real-time fluoroscopy when performing lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections, except for outside the groin.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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