Evaluation of occupational external radiation and related factors in Nuclear Medicine Center of Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital in 1398

Most radioactive materials used in nuclear medicine are gamma emitters. Gamma range is relatively large, so the nuclear medicine staff is exposed to external exposure by gamma. The aim of this study was to estimate the dose of a nuclear medicine staff during different diagnostic methods in a nuclear medicine center.

This study is a descriptive _cross-sectional study . The studied components include the amount of radiation of the staff in the imaging stage of patients and the injection of radiopharmaceuticals to patients at different intervals. A total of 60 patients and 8 staff were included in this study.  Data collected in terms of compliance with the dose limits set by the Atomic Energy Organization (20 mill Sieverts per year) based on descriptive statistics such as minimum dose, maximum dose, the mean and standard deviation of analysis, and comparisons through student t-test in SPSS software was performed.

The average amount of irradiation recorded for staff when imaging patients ranged from 0.03 ± 0.01 to 0.32 ± 0.08 and also when radiopharmaceuticals were injected into the patient in the range of 0.05 ± 0.03 to 0.43 ± 0.04 has been registered.

 The dose received was in good agreement with other studies، the amount of irradiation recorded was acceptable and did not exceed the dose set for radiologists (20 mill Sieverts per year). The dose received by staff as the distance from the patient increases and the duration of communication with the patient decreases, decreases.