Does the term “single field” refer to the location on the skin through which the radiation is directed or the target internal organ, or both?
As it relates to fluoroscopy, the specification of “1500 rads to a single field” refers to a location on the skin through which the fluoroscopic beam is directed. The issue here is the magnitude of the dose to that portion of the skin that receives the maximum or peak skin dose. This may be the situation that results from using several different x-ray beam projections or fields-of-view whose beam areas on the patient’s skin overlap in a specific location to produce a region of highest radiation dose. In fluoroscopically-guided interventional procedures, many different projections or x-ray beam directions are often used, with many overlapping fields-of-view or imaged areas.
