Exposure to fingers while handling a solvent extraction-type technetium-99m generator

Technetium-99m-labeled compounds are routinely used for various diagnostic procedures in nuclear medicine. In India, most of the nuclear medicine centers use 99mTc obtained from a solvent extraction-type generator. As a result of the long procedure involved in the separation of 99mTc from 99mMo in this type of generator compared to the elution of 99mTc from a column-type generator, the likelihood of exposure to fingers of technicians is high. The measurement of radiation exposure was done on 16 workers at seven major nuclear medicine centers in India. The maximum exposure to any of the fingers per MBq of 99mTc extracted was found to vary from 1.46 X 10(-9) to 22.38 X 10(-9) C-kg-1. With the existing work load, the exposures to the fingers were found to be within the permissible limits.