Assessing occupational exposure to radiation in nuclear medicine laboratories in Newfoundland and Labrador's hospitals

Almanea, Fawaz (2020) Assessing occupational exposure to radiation in nuclear medicine laboratories in Newfoundland and Labrador's hospitals. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Among the health care workers, nuclear medicine staff are the highest in terms of exposure to ionizing radiation [1][2]. In response to this and as a compliance with the international and national standards, clinical sites have developed detailed procedures to minimize and monitor the occupational exposure. Our study aims to assess the feasibility of using available radiation dose data in the clinical settings in NL for research purposes, and to assess the occupational radiation dose to nuclear medicine staff in Newfoundland and Labrador’s hospitals for the period of 2007 to 2018. Furthermore, our goal is to investigate the general trend of these doses and the effect of technology change on occupational radiation dose. Our study found that the average annual whole body and extremities doses were well below the 50 mSv for whole body dose limit and the 500 mSv for extremities limit which are set by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The average annual whole-body doses in the Health Science’s Centre and St. Clare’s Hospital were below the worldwide average annual dose of 1.9 mSv that was reported by The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)[3]. Overall data showed that 78% of the high value measurements were readings for experienced participants and 22% of the high value readings were for new staff or less experienced participants. Technology changes, such as installing a new imaging machine in HSC shows an impact on the occupational radiation dose trend. Our currently available data is not enough to detect the correlation between the dose variations and (i) the number of procedures, (ii) number of staff, or (iii) type of radiopharmaceuticals. This is establishing the need to enhance the quality of the occupational radiation dose records.

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