Study of nuclear medicine practices in Portugal from an internal dosimetry perspective

Abstract

Nuclear medicine practices involve the handling of a wide range of pharmaceuticals labelled with different radionuclides, for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. This work intends to evaluate the potential risks of internal contamination of nuclear medicine staff in several Portuguese nuclear medicine services and to conclude about the requirement of a routine internal monitoring. A methodology proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), providing a set of criteria to determine the need, or not, for an internal monitoring programme, was applied. The evaluation of the risk of internal contaminations in a given set of working conditions is based on the type and amount of radionuclides being handled, as well as the safety conditions with which they are manipulated. The application of the IAEA criteria showed that 73.1% of all the workers included in this study should be integrated in a routine monitoring programme for internal contaminations; more specifically, 100% of workers performing radioimmunoassay techniques should be monitored. This study suggests that a routine monitoring programme for internal exposures should be implemented in Portugal for most nuclear medicine workers.

Necessity of Internal Monitoring for Nuclear Medicine Staff in a Large Specialized Chinese Hospital

“…The second part is the study of the necessity of internal monitoring for nuclear medicine staff. Researchers in Chile [ 21 ], Portugal [ 22 ], Brazil [ 23 ] have carried out some research based on the aforementioned methodology to determine whether staff should be subjected to internal monitoring. Since the 1980s, there have been only a few studies and a small number of reports on the work of internal exposure in the field of nuclear medicine in China [ 9 , 18 ].…”

Avaliação das Exposições Ocupacionais Internas em Medicina Nuclear – Dificuldades e Alternativas

“…Em outros países da América Latina e Caribe [16][17][18] , na América do Norte [19][20][21] , Europa [22][23][24] e Ásia 25,26 , a situação da monitoração interna em medicina nuclear é bastante semelhante à do Brasil. Em alguns países, assim como no Brasil, foram desenvolvidas metodologias de monitoração utilizando os recursos disponíveis nas próprias clínicas.…”

Assessing the need for a routine monitoring program in three Nuclear Medicine centers in Chile

“…gloves, fume hood) and 0.001 is a conversion factor from Sv to mSv. The factor f hs used in our case was reported by Bento et al (2012) because they consider greater diversity of the operations.…”

“…For the application of the proposed IAEA criteria and determination of the decision factor, an easy tool based on an Excel template was designed, which is shown in Figure 1. This template includes e(g) j coefficients (ICRP, 2012), f ps factors proposed by the IAEA (1999b) and f hs factors reported by Bento et al (2012). The factors used in the template are shown in Tables 1-3. The template was applied to staff that directly perform diagnostic and therapeutic procedures with radionuclides in three Nuclear Medicine centers located in Chile.…”