Evaluation of internal exposure of nuclear medicine staff through in vivo and in vitro bioassay techniques

The manipulation of a wide variety of unsealed sources in Nuclear Medicine results in a significant risk of internal exposure of the workers. I-131 should be highlighted among the most frequently used radionuclides because of its large application for diagnosis and therapy of thyroid diseases. The increasing use of radionuclides for medical purposes creates a demand for feasible methodologies to perform occupational control of internal contamination. Currently in Brazil, there are similar to 300 nuclear medicine centres in operation but individual monitoring is still restricted to the control of external exposure. This work presents the development of in vivo and in vitro bioassay techniques aimed to quantify incorporation of radionuclides used in Nuclear Medicine. It is also presented the results of a preliminary survey of internal exposure of a group of workers involved in the preparation of therapeutic doses of I-131. Workers were monitored with a gamma camera available in the Nuclear Medicine Service of the University Hospital of Rio de Janeiro and at the Institute of Radiation Protection and Dosimetry Whole-Body Counter (IRD-WBC). The in vivo detection systems were calibrated with a neck-thyroid phantom developed in IRD. Urine samples from radio pharmacy workers were collected after preparation and administration of therapeutic doses (10-250 mCi) of I-131 and measured with a HPGe detection system available in the Bioassay Laboratory of IRD. The results show that the bioassay methods developed in this work present enough sensitivity for routine monitoring of nuclear medicine workers. All workers monitored in this survey presented positive results for I-131 in urine samples and two workers presented detectable activities in thyroid when measured at the IRD-WBC. The highest committed effective dose per preparation was estimated to be 17 mu Sv.