Influence of a department monitoring to the staff radiation exposure at a PET department

Summary

Aim:
The aim of optimizing radiation protection in the PET Center was to reduce the dose rate and the risk of application places contamination and contamination during preparation of the radiopharmaceutical, thus reducing the staff radiation exposure.

Methods:
During 2012, we changed our attitude to the radiation protection at our department and optimized the radiation protection procedures. We have introduced consistent contamination monitoring of surfaces, used aids and waste arising from application; we have changed the timing and frequency of a monitoring measurements from the working day end to several monitoring measurements during a working day; an open dialogue on monitoring and radiation protection has been introduced; and we changed our attitude to radiation protection training and emergency preparedness.

Results:
There was a significant increase of the number of detected contaminations thanks to monitoring of workplaces every two hours during the routine clinical work (from several contaminations per year to several contaminations per month), which could be cleared away in time. We achieved the reduction of the relative personal collective dose by 28 % and the relative collective dose by 45 % at our department over the past five years. The relative dose on the hands decreased most significantly in the case of doctors (up to 54 %).

Conclusions:
We have succeeded in introducing a new approach to workplace monitoring and staff training to significantly reduce the radiation exposure of our staff without any associated financial costs at the department. The department was equipped with the same technique of shielding equipment throughout the evaluated period; there was no change in the equipment or the change of the radiopharmaceutical application.

Key Words:
radiation protection, surface contamination, monitoring, PET