Standard protocol for CT urography led to higher mean effective dose, approximately 1.5 times the radiation risk for conventional urography. Patient dose estimates should be taken into consideration when imaging protocols are established for CT urography.

Handling and administration of radiopharmaceuticals are a key contributor to staff radiation dose. Shielded automated infusion devices potentially standardize and reduce radiation exposure during procedures. However, loading the devices adds incremental radiation exposure, which may mitigate dose savings. We measured radiation doses from the loading and use of an automated infusion device and compared these with those from manual injection of 18 F radiotracers. Methods: Adult patients were administered 18 F-FDG or 18 F-FLT before 3-dimensional PET whole-body or brain imaging, respectively. Radioactivity amounts from manual injections performed with protective syringe shields and vial holders were measured by a standard dose calibrator before and after injection. Automated infusions were performed using the shielded infusion device. Staff wore electronic dosimeters at the wrist and trunk. Electronic dosimeters were also worn while multidose 18 F-FDG vials were loaded and unloaded. For each task, background radiation was determined and subtracted from the electronic dosimeter values. Results: Twenty-seven manually injected unit doses yielded a mean administered dose to patients of 480.7 6 66.2 MBq (12.99 6 1.79 mCi), compared with 431.9 6 22.7 MBq (11.67 6 0.61 mCi) in 34 automated injections. The mean difference was statistically significant. To control for this difference, results were expressed as a standardized dose per unit of activity. With the automated infusion device, the mean extremity dose per injection was 0.003 6 0.002 mSv/MBq, compared with 0.026 6 0.017 mSv/MBq with manual injections. Mean body dose per procedure with automated infusion was 0.001 mSv/MBq, versus 0.011 mSv/MBq with manual injection (P , 0.001). The changing of bulk 18 F-FDG vials in 37 procedures added a mean dose per vial change of 0.89 6 1.3 mSv to the extremities and 0.47 6 2.0 mSv to the body. Conclusion: The use of a shielded automatic infusion device in a clinical PET setting resulted in an approximately 10-fold decrease in staff extremity and body doses during the administration of 18 F-labeled radiopharmaceuticals. Loading and unloading bulk vials of radiotracer did not significantly offset these dose savings. Reduci ng radiation exposure to patients, nuclear medicine staff, and others is a common goal of professionals in radiation protection and nuclear medicine. Potential increases in both medical and occupational radiation exposure have become a more urgent and persistent issue with the increasing dissemination of PET imaging, which uses higher-photon-yield radiopharmaceuticals such as 18 F-FDG (1-3). Task-based analyses often point to the handling and administration of radioactive materials as a key contributor to increased dose to staff (4-7).Shielded automated infusion devices have recently been introduced, allowing for subsequent reductions in radiation exposure to staff during patient dosing procedures (8-10). These dose reductions are possible for several reasons. The first is the increased distance of operators from...

Radiation doses for all tasks during routine Rb-82 stress-rest PET are lower than measured Tc-99m MIBI values. However, the radiation dose in close proximity to the patient during or immediately after Rb-82 infusion can be considerably higher, underscoring the need for strict attention to source distance and contact times.

Arterial administration of 90Y microspheres is used for salvage therapy in patients with primary or metastasized tumors within the liver. The clinical use of high-yield beta emitters presents unique calibration, dosage measurement, and exposure monitoring tasks. This report illustrates the following issues: determination of container and volume-specific correction factors in a standard dose calibrator for various receipt and dispensing vial geometries using a U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology-traceable 90Y standard solution; documentation of delivery and localization of the radionuclide; statistically-verified ion chamber measurements of residual (non infused) radioactivity; and measurement of occupational radiation exposures.

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