Introduction
With the advances in technology, open surgical interventions have decreased in modern urology practice and the use of endourological procedures has increased.1 Frequently used endourological procedures such as percutaneous nephrolithotomy, endoscopic ureter stone treatments, and retrograde intrarenal operations are mostly performed under fluoroscopy guidance. During these fluoroscopic-guided procedures, surgeons, patients and operating room staff are exposed to a significant amount of ionizing radiation.2
Stochastic (mutation and cancer) and deterministic effects may occur as a result of radiation exposure. This effect is related to the duration, dose and protection used.1 For this reason, the International Radiation Commission recommends that the radiation dose exposed should not exceed an average of 20 mSv (milisievert)/year in a five years period.3
In order to avoid these negative effects of radiation, personal protective equipment such as lead apron, thyroid shield, radiation protection gloves and goggles should be used and basic principles should be observed.1 In addition, it is necessary to use a dosimeter to determine the cumulative radiation dose exposed.6 However, studies on this subject have revealed that protective equipment and dosimeters are not used enough among urologists, and there is a lack of knowledge and awareness on this subject.2,6,7
Urology residency is an important occupational group with a high risk of exposure to radiation. In Turkey, urology residency training is applied in university hospitals and training and research hospitals. Although there are studies evaluating the awareness of radiation exposure among the urology residents, there is no study comparing the tendency to use fluoroscopy in different institutions in the literature. In this study, we evaluated the tendency, knowledge, awareness and behavior patterns of urology residents in Turkey regarding the use of fluoroscopy in different institutions.