Quality audit programme for (99m)Tc and (131)I radioactivity measurements with radionuclide calibrators

The use of radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine for diagnosis and therapy has increased over the years with (99m)Tc and (131)I being most widely used. Quality audit programmes for radioactivity measurements of (131)I have been ongoing and the 12th audit was recently conducted among seventy nuclear medicine centres (NMC) in India. An audit for the activity measurements of (99m)Tc was conducted for the first time among ten NMCs in Mumbai, India. These programmes for radioactivity measurements have become very important to establish traceability of measurements to national and international standards and ensure accurate calibration of radionuclide calibrators. The results of both the audits are very encouraging. Ninety-four percent of the NMCs for (131)I activity measurements were within a window of +/-10% and for (99m)Tc one NMC was deviating more than +/-10%. The methodology adopted for the audit and results are discussed in detail in this paper.