Nuclear medicine examinations of children in Russia

The number and specification of radionuclide examinations, administrated activity and effective doses were collected during 2011-13 for 4944 paediatric patients from 10 nuclear medicine (NM) departments of some Russian regions. The kidney examinations account for about 70 % of paediatric NM examinations in general hospitals. Diagnostics of all other organs contribute from 2 to 8 % each in the total number of paediatric examinations. Administrated activities of radiopharmaceuticals are approximately proportional to the child's age, and variations between different hospitals usually are within the factor of 3-4 and for some types of examination up to 10. The range of the effective dose due to paediatric NM examinations is roughly estimated as 2-6 mSv per examination, approximately the same as in adults. Some examinations (heart, thyroid, whole body) result in doses of younger children that are 2-3 times higher than the doses of adults. Effective doses in paediatric positron emission tomography (PET) diagnostics are in the range of 4-10 mSv per examination and are higher compared with the dose of adult patients. The application of combined radiodiagnostic technologies (single photon emission computer tomography with roentghen computer tomography [SPECT/CT] or PET with roetghen computer tomography [PET/CT]) increases the effective dose of patients by the factor of 1.5-2 for the skeleton or whole body examinations.