Dose Assessments to the Hands of Radiopharmaceutical Workers

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2008

OSTI ID:958868

Ilas, Dan ^[1]; Eckerman, Keith F ^[1]; Sherbini, Sami ^[2]; Karagiannis, Harriet ^[2]

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1. ORNL
2. NRC

This paper describes the characterization of radiation doses to the hands of nuclear medicine technicians resulting from the handling of radiopharmaceuticals. Radiation monitoring using ring dosimeters indicates that finger dosimeters may overestimate or underestimate the radiation doses to the skin that are used to show compliance with applicable regulations depending on the nature of the particular procedure and the radioisotope being handled. To better understand the parameters governing the absorbed dose distributions, a detailed model of the hands was created and used in Monte Carlo simulations of selected nuclear medicine procedures. Simulations on realistic configurations typical for workers handling radiopharmaceuticals were performed for a range of energies of the source photons. The lack of charged-particle equilibrium necessitated full photon-electron coupled transport calculations. The results show that the dose to different regions of the fingers can differ substantially from the dosimeters' readings when the dosimeters are located at the base of the finger. We tried to identify consistent patterns that relate the actual dose to the dosimeter readings. These patterns depend on the specific work conditions and can be used to better assess the absorbed dose to different regions of the exposed skin.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Sponsoring Organization: ORNL work for others
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 958868
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COMPLIANCE
DOSEMETERS
FINGERS
NUCLEAR MEDICINE
PHOTONS
RADIATION DOSES
RADIATION MONITORING
RADIOISOTOPES
RADIOPHARMACEUTICALS
REGULATIONS
TRANSPORT