Radiation exposure and safety for the electrophysiologist.

This review attempts to give practical advice for invasive electrophysiologists on personal radiation protection. Applying all measures of the "As low as reasonably achievable" ALARA concept should be a daily and indeed routine practice for all staff in the electrophysiology laboratory. A substantial number of technical options have been recently introduced which may enable the physician to lower the total radiation exposure significantly, but all require a substantial learning curve. Using these measures can arrive at very low or indeed close to ZERO fluoroscopy exposure even in complex ablation cases.