Assessing Occupational Radiation Exposure for PET/CT Technologists: A Study of Finger Radiation Dose at a Selected Hospital

Abstract

In nuclear medicine, radiation exposure to the ngers is a matter of concern for radiation workers since they perform the preparation, dispensing and administration of radiopharmaceuticals. Therefore, this study aims to assess the nger radiation dose received by the technologist who is dealing with dispensing and the administration of 18FFluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in Positron Emission Tomography (PET)/ Computed Tomography (CT) imaging procedures in a PET/CT centre at Asiri Surgical Hospital, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The nger radiation dose received by the technologist was measured by the ED3 active real-time extremity dosimeter over a period of 2 months from November 2022 to December 2022. During this data collection period, a total of 50 PET/CT procedures were performed by the technologist. The ED3 detector was mounted with a single nger coat onto the base of the ring nger of the right hand of the technologist. The dosimetry reading for each procedure was accumulated. The estimated mean value of nger dose from preparation and administration of radiotracers were 78.54 Sv and 177.63 Sv respectively. The annual dose was estimated from the total number of PET/CT procedures performed in 2022. The annual estimated nger dose for the technologist is 180.09 mSv, which was found to be within the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommended value of 500 mSv. This study revealed that the nger dose during FDG Injection was signi cantly higher than the nger dose found during FDG preparation. Nevertheless, when they increase the number of PET/CT procedures is relatively high, there is a higher possibility to reach the dose limit.