WP4: Extremity dosimetry in nuclear medicine

Coordinator:
University Hospital Center Vaudois (CHUV)

Participants:
CHUV, IRSN, UPC, SMU, SCK, ENEA, BfS

Specific objectives:

To evaluate extremity doses (and dose distributions across the hands) of medical staff working in nuclear medicine departments
To study the influence of protective devices such as syringe and vial shields and to improve such devices when possible
To propose “levels of reference doses” for each standard nuclear medicine procedure and to use these for risk assessment and optimisation of working methods
To propose a methodology to reduce dose to nuclear medicine workers

Activities:

To define standard procedures in nuclear medicine for dispensing and administration of positron, beta and gamma emitters (especially for short lived nuclides currently introduced in therapy and diagnosis)
To perform measurements for standard procedures in nuclear medicine in various hospitals in Europe, with a unified measurement protocol. At least 12 hospitals will be involved in the measurement program with a follow up
To calculate expected hand dose distribution using standard Monte Carlo programs such as MCNP and PENELOPE and deterministic programs
To analyse and discuss the results, especially with respect to the effect of the radiation protection measures
To develop guidelines for the reduction of the staff extremity doses
To develop a simple tool for estimating extremity doses for the main nuclear medicine procedures

Workpackages