Trend and distribution analysis of occupational radiation exposure among medical practices in Chongqing, China (2008–2020)

Background While it is established that interventional radiology and nuclear medicine radiation workers constitute an ideal cohort for low-dose irradiation studies within the spectrum of occupational radiation exposure, there is a noticeable lack of comprehensive cohort investigations both domestically and internationally. Addressing this gap, the Chongqing radiation workers (CRWs) cohort study has been formulated to systematically assess the impact of occupational radiation exposure on chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among professionals in these fields. Additionally, the study aims to evaluate the influence of factors such as occupational radiation dose, demographic characteristics, lifestyle, and dietary habits on the incidence and progression of NCDs. Crucially, researchers will delve into dose reconstruction for this specific population, including considerations such as sensitive organs, cumulative dose, and biological dose. Methods The CRWs study adopts a retrospective and prospective cohort design, with plans to enroll approximately 6000 participants from Chongqing commencing in 2023. The principal objective is to examine the impact of occupational radiation exposure on NCDs. Various data, including questionnaires, radiation dose forms, physical examination results, and biological samples, will be systematically collected and analyzed. A sustained follow-up over 20–30 years will be conducted, continuously documenting both radiation dose and health-related data. Discussion The cohort ensures lifelong follow-up and furnishes comprehensive data on multiple variables, yielding pivotal insights into the risk factors and consequences of occupational radiation exposure in interventional and nuclear medicine environments on NCDs. Our formulation of a plan for dose reconstruction in radiation-sensitive organs significantly addresses the current critical concern. The sample size in CRWs is limited, impeding the collection of numerous outcomes in a short timeframe; thus, necessitating a prolonged and thorough follow-up for the study. The observed gender imbalance among groups may introduce bias when estimating the relationship between exposure factors and NCDs. Trial registration The protocol has been registered on National Health Security Information Platform and Medical Research Information Filing Information System. MR-50-23-009837.https://www.medicalresearch.org.cn/login

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‘TLDetect’: AI-Based Application for Detection and Correction of Anomalous TLD Glow Curves

Amit,

Vagerman,

Revayev

2024

Sensors

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This research reviews a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-based application called TLDetect, which filters and classifies anomalous glow curves (GCs) of thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs). Until recently, GC review and correction in the lab were performed using an old in-house software, which uses the Microsoft Access database and allows the laboratory technician to manually review and correct almost all GCs without any filtering. The newly developed application TLDetect uses a modern SQL database and filters out only the necessary GCs for technician review. TLDetect first uses an artificial neural network (ANN) model to filter out all regular GCs. Afterwards, it automatically classifies the rest of the GCs into five different anomaly classes. These five classes are defined by the typical patterns of GCs, i.e., high noise at either low or high temperature channels, untypical GC width (either wide or narrow), shifted GCs whether to the low or to the high temperatures, spikes, and a last class that contains all other unclassified anomalies. By this automatic filtering and classification, the algorithm substantially reduces the amount of the technician’s time spent reviewing the GCs and makes the external dosimetry laboratory dose assessment process more repeatable, more accurate, and faster. Moreover, a database of the class anomalies distribution over time of GCs is saved along with all their relevant statistics, which can later assist with preliminary diagnosis of TLD reader hardware issues.

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Trend and distribution analysis of occupational radiation exposure among medical practices in Chongqing, China (2008–2020)

Cited by 3 publications

References 16 publications

Occupational radiation exposure among medical personnel in university and general hospitals in Japan

Occupational radiation exposure among medical personnel in university and general hospitals in Japan

Cohort study protocol: investigating the impact of occupational radiation exposure on chronic non-communicable diseases among interventional radiology and nuclear medicine radiation workers - the chongqing radiation workers cohort study (CRWs)

‘TLDetect’: AI-Based Application for Detection and Correction of Anomalous TLD Glow Curves

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