Reduction of extremity dose in the radiopharmacy

With the future introduction of legislation originating from ICRP60 in mind, the operating procedures for the radiopharmacy were reviewed, with the intention of reducing extremity radiation dose. The radiopharmacist's index fingertip dose was measured using TLDs. The radiopharmacist received a mean dose of 0.7 mSv per 10 GBq of administered activity for the right (non-dominant hand) index finger and 0.2 mSv per 10 GBq for the left (dominant hand) index finger. These doses were comparable with other publications. The radiopharmacist received the largest part of the radiation dose during the preparation of 99Tc(m)-MDP. During this preparation, the saline was withdrawn into a syringe already containing 99Tc(m)-eluate, which results in a dose to the fingers. The technique was changed so that the saline and 99Tc(m)-eluate were withdrawn and injected separately into a MDP kit. This reduced the right finger radiation dose to 0.4 mSv per 10 GBq, while the left finger radiation dose remained at 0.2 mSv per 10 GBq. This shows that radiation doses can be effectively reduced using simple changes in procedure.