Staff at nuclear medicine departments receive doses of ionising radiation higher than the staff of radiotherapy and radiology departments, with the exception of interventional radiologists. Due to the updated lower occupational exposure limit for the lens of the eye, we measured eye exposure in workers of the Nuclear Medicine Department, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland. EYE-D™ dosimeters were used for 3 months by 10 employees working with sources of ionising radiation. Personal dosimeters also measured the exposure of the whole body and hands. The 3-month dose equivalents for the lens of the eye in the employees was 0.20-0.72 mSv. Staff at NMD PMU do not require regular routine eye lens dose monitoring. Eye lens doses were well within the new annual limit of 20 mSv. Doses to the whole body may be used as an indicator of the eye lens doses in the monitored department.

The appropriate radiation protection measures applied in departments of nuclear medicine should lead to a reduction in doses received by the employees. During 1991-2007, at the Department of Nuclear Medicine of Pomeranian Medical University (Szczecin, Poland), nurses received on average two-times higher (4.6 mSv) annual doses to the whole body than those received by radiopharmacy technicians. The purpose of this work was to examine whether implementation of changes in the radiation protection protocol will considerably influence the reduction in whole-body doses received by the staff that are the most exposed. A reduction in nurses' exposure by ~63 % took place in 2008-11, whereas the exposure of radiopharmacy technicians grew by no more than 22 % in comparison with that in the period 1991-2007. Proper reorganisation of the work in departments of nuclear medicine can considerably affect dose reduction and bring about equal distribution of the exposure.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is currently the most advanced diagnostic imaging technology along with well-known techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT). Tremendous technical progress in engineering, imaging and radiopharmacy has provided the basis for impressive technological advances in the field of nuclear medicine over the past 50 years. Current nuclear medicine can be divided into 2 groups: the classic, which uses gamma-cameras for single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging, and the more modern PET technique. The clinical PET technique requires: (i) patient administration of the radiopharmaceutical labelled with a positron emitter, (ii) recording of the gamma radiation emitted from the patient’s body with a dedicated PET/ CT scanner, (iii) processing and analysis of recorded images. This article presents the basics of PET technology and research, and describes new technical trends introduced by the leading manufacturers of PET/CT scanners.

Objective The aim of the study was to assess the accuracy of quantitative SPECT/CT imaging in a clinical setting and to compare test results from two nuclear medicine departments.Methods Phantom studies were carried out with two gamma cameras manufactured by GE Healthcare: Discovery NM/CT 670 and NM/CT 850, used in two nuclear medicine departments.Results The convergence of activity concentration recovery was validated for the two gamma cameras operating in two medical centres using a homogeneous 3D phantom. The comparison of results revealed a 5% difference in the calibration factor Bg. cal; 6% difference in COV, and a 0.6% difference in total activity deviation ∆Atot.Recovery coefficients (RCmax) for activity concentration in spheres of the anthropomorphic phantom was measured for different image reconstruction techniques. RCmax was in the range of 0.2-0.4 for the smallest sphere (ϕ10 mm), and 1.3-1.4 for the largest sphere (ϕ37 mm). Conversion factors for SUVmax and SUVmean for the gamma camera systems used were 0.99 and 1.13, respectively.Conclusions 1) Measurements taken in our study confirmed the clinical suitability of 5 parameters of image quality (Bg. cal- background calibration factor, ∆Atot- total activity deviation, COV- noise level estimation, QH- hot contrast, AM-accuracy of measurements or RC- recovery coefficient) for the validation of SPECT/CT system performance in terms of correct quantitative acquisitions of images. 2) This work shows that absolute SPECT/CT quantification is achievable in clinical nuclear medicine centers. Results variation of quantitative analyzes between centers is mainly related to the use of different reconstruction methods. 3) It is necessary to standardize the technique of measuring the SUV conversion factor obtained with different SPECT/CT scanners.

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