Level of occupational exposure during daily work in a Nuclear Medicine Department

Abstract

Workers of the Nuclear Medicine Department have a very complex geometric exposition. The source of irradiation is not collimated and irradiated for all direction, the interaction with many structural tissue is inside the body before could be detected outside. The professional who works in a Nuclear Medicine Department is exposed to this condition and different energies. This work proposes a good approach to estimate the mensal dose level according to the dose rate during their daily routine. To measure the dose rate, a Babyline 81 ionization chamber was used, and the most frequent exams using 99mTc were chosen. A previous study was conducted to determine the most frequent exams made in the Nuclear Medicine Department at the Central Army Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, and previous environment monitoring determine the places with higher exposure that could interfere in the measurement of this paper. The Renal scintigraphy with diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) had an average dose rate of (2.50±0.25) µSv/h; for the Renal scintigraphy with dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA), it was of (1.20±0.25) µSv/h; for Bone scintigraphy using two different protocols, it was (2.63±0.30) µSv/h and (3.09±0.30) µSv/h. Exposition during elution, dose preparing and clinical procedure was considered a critical moment in the daily routine of the employee. The dose rate obtained in this study demonstrated that the professional cannot exceed the public dose limit in one day of his work routine. Therefore, for the Radioprotection Department, this is a good approach to make a radioprotection plan in the Nuclear Medicine Department.