Introduction
Interventional cardiology procedures (ICPs) such as percutaneous
coronary intervention (PCI) and radiofrequency catheter ablation have
become mainstay treatments to improve clinical outcomes in patients with
coronary artery disease
(CAD)1,
2 and cardiac
arrhythmias3,
4.
Current ICP routinely requires
x-ray guidance. The occupational
health hazards (OHHs) associated with x-ray radiation exposure in
interventional cardiologists have been
well-recognized5. Wearing of
lead personal protective equipment
(PPE) is warranted to minimize the harm caused by radiation exposure.
However, long-time wearing of heavy lead PPE produces subsequent OHH
that is usually ignored: body
pain. Previous research has reported the correlation between wearing
lead aprons and spine
problems6,
7. A survey of interventional
cardiologists in the United States showed that nearly half of the
participants suffered chronic back pain and one-fourth had problems
related to their hips, knees, or
ankles8.
It is estimated that over 1 million ICPs are conducted annually by about
5,000 interventional cardiologists in 2,000 tertiary
cardiac care facilities in
China9. PCI is one of
the major types of ICPs, with annual volume increased by 21 times from
2001 to 2011 in China2.
Another major type of ICPs is cardiac arrhythmia catheter ablation,
which increased by 1.7 times from 2009 to
201610. Atrial
fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrythmia, with > 10
million patients in
China11. However, the
proportion of patients with AF that received ablation therapy in China
was only 1.22%, much lower than that
in developed countries (about 5% in
the United States12 and
28.2% in Japan13).
Predictably, the volume of AF ablation procedure will increase
dramatically due to high level of recommendation for catheter
ablation14. The
burgeoning need for ICPs demands interventional cardiologists in China
to work harder, which puts them at a higher risk of OHHs.
To explore their OHHs and the
unmet health protection needs, the Chinese Society of Cardiology (CSC)
and Chinese Heart Rhythm Society (CHRS) endorsed this national online
survey in the registered interventional cardiologists.