The research project “Validation and Estimation of Radiation skIn Dose in Interventional Cardiology (VERIDIC)”, is funded by the European Commission and focuses on patient-specific dose calculation in interventional cardiology (IC).

The main objective of VERIDIC project is the harmonization of radiation dose structured report (RDSR) and the validation of skin dose calculation (SDC) software products in IC, which will optimize radiation protection of patients.

Based on the findings of the research project, standards for digital dose reporting will be proposed, including a complete list of parameters necessary to calculate maximum skin dose (MSD) and 2D dose distribution, as well as the recording format and content of MSD values and 2D dose distributions in the RDSR. Protocols for acceptance testing and quality control (QC) of SDC software will be also developed and tested and finally, interventional Reference Levels (RL) and frequency of high-dose procedures, as well as dose reduction strategies, will be established thanks to a multi-centric data collection.

The project is supported by the European Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) and collaboration with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will be sought, which ensures an optimal dissemination of results. A total of 10 European organizations are part of the program under the coordination of the Belgian Research Center SCK-CEN. It consists of 3 Work Packages (WPs) and EEAE participates in 1 of them. More specifically, in WP3 (Investigation of skin dose determinants and optimization of medical practice).

The project is funded by the “CONCERT-European Joint Programme for the Integration of Radiation Protection Research in Europe” and will last 24 months (2018-2020).