Occupational radiation exposure in Pet Ct units

الملخص EN

This paper presents the measurements and the evaluation of the annual effective whole body radiation dose to medical physicists, nurses and technicians working with certain assigned duties in three positron emission tomography / computed tomography (PET/CT) units.

The wrist dose to medical physicist during dose preparation process is also measured.

The annual effective whole body dose is evaluated by measuring radiation dose using thermo-luminescent dosimeters (TLDs) for 6 months for each PET/CT unit and electronic pocket dosimeter (EPD) for 1 month held at chest level.

The radioactive material handled in three PET/CT units is 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (18F-FDG) with mean activity 470.5 MBq/patient injected to 604 patients during the 18 months period of the study.

For each examination, a medical physicist, a nurse and a technician are involved to different duties as dose preparation, injection and scanning procedures respectively.

The average annual whole body radiation dose is estimated to be 2.04 mSv for the medical physicist, 2.35 mSv for the nurse and 1.93 mSv for the technician in the three PET/CT units.

According to this evaluation it is found that the occupational doses in PET/CT units are controlled and can be minimized by applying more radiation protection precautions and better workflow planning.