(Monday, 7/15/2019) 9:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Room: Exhibit Hall | Forum 8
Purpose: To summarize 35 years of occupational badge dose records for U.S. radiologic technologists who reported working with nuclear medicine (NM) procedures.
Methods: In 2013-2014, a mailed work history survey was sent to a subset (n= 9,398) who had recently reported performing NM procedures among a large cohort of U.S. radiologic technologists (USRT). Detailed questions inquired about their history of performing specific NM procedures by decade for the period before 1970 through 2009. Responses from 4,406 technologists who reported ever working with diagnostic NM procedures were linked to a historical badge dose record database from Landauer, Inc. Annual badge doses for the years in which the participants worked with diagnostic NM procedures were summarized for 1980-2015. Technologists with recorded badge doses for the period 2010-2015 were assumed to have continued the same work practices as reported for 2000–2009.
Results: Annual personal dose equivalents (badge doses) corresponding to diagnostic NM work history declined between 1980 and 1999 and generally increased during 2000–2015. Across the entire period (1980-2015), the median annual dose was 1.4 mSv (interquartile range (IQR), 0.06–3.5 mSv) overall and 0.62, 1.2 and 1.4 mSv for technologists who performed diagnostic NM procedures 1–15, 16–30 and 31+ times per week, respectively. Technologists performing cardiac procedures 11+ times/week and those performing positron emission tomography (PET) scans 5+ times/week after 2000 received median annual doses of 1.8 mSv (IQR, 0.43–3.3 mSv) and 2.4 mSv (IQR, 0.34–3.3 mSv), respectively.
Conclusion: Among U.S. radiologic technologists who performed diagnostic NM procedures, those who worked with PET and cardiac scans received some of the highest per-procedure radiation doses. For this last sub-group of technologists, organ doses will be estimated, and future health risk analyses will be conducted to quantify the dose-response relationship for cancer and other diseases.
Keywords
Radiation Risk, Nuclear Medicine, Radiation Protection
Taxonomy
IM- Radiation dose and risk: General (Most Aspects)
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