Extremity doses assessment of nuclear medicine staff involved in 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals preparation: A multicentre study

Assessment of extremity exposure to technologists working manually with 99mTc-labelled radiopharmaceuticals and with an automatic injection system for 18F-FDG

“…For example, Carnicer et al [4] found that the highest doses were collected by the index fingertip of the non-dominant hand and thus recommends wearing a ring dosimeter on this finger. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that contrary to Carnicer et al [4] findings, our study as well as the studies of Adliene et al [2] and Zoccarato et al [9] have found that higher doses are received by the dominant hand. The only case observed in our study where a higher dose was received by the non-dominant hand was during 99m Tc injections where the greatest dose was measured for the tip of the left hand index finger, which can be explained by the fact that the worker holds the patient's arm directly at the cannula injection site for greater stability.…”

“…The most exposed area of NM workers is the hands due to the fact that the unsealed source of radiation is relatively close to them at the time of labelling, dispensing and injecting radiopharmaceuticals to patients [2][3][4]. To evaluate extremity doses, passive ring dosimeters are usually used in hospitals [1][2][3][4][5][6], however, published researches [1,[7][8][9] indicate that the dose distribution over the hand is inhomogeneous and the maximum dose is received by fingertips, which means that the dose results obtained with a ring dosimeter in the typical monitoring position (base of the middle finger of the dominant hand) can be much lower.…”