Fingertip and Whole Body Exposure to Nuclear Medicine Personnel

Abstract

We calculate radiation exposure to the nuclear medicine technologist for all common sources of exposure. Special attention is given to exposure received by fingertips. We include typical exposure rates for patient injections, reagent preparations, generator handling and elution, patient positioning, and other phases of nuclear medicine. The cumulative exposure to fingertips and whole body is estimated. When every precaution is taken to minimize exposure in our laboratory, the unavoidable annual exposure to the fingertips is 11 R; to the whole body it is 1 R from all sources. When precautions are nottaken, the annual exposure to the fingertips may exceed 170 R and the whole body dose may then approach 2 R. Our nuclear medicine laboratory averages about 1,000 injections per technologist per year.