Occupational radiation dose assessment of professionals working in a nuclear medicine and PET/CT centre

Nuclear medicine (NM) and positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) personnel are daily exposed to radiation dose, their protection being crucial. This study of occupational doses within the NM and PET/CT department of a large Riyadh tertiary covers the period 2019 to 2022. Calibrated optically stimulated luminescence dosimeters (OSLD) were utilized to determine personal dose equivalent Hp(10). Both departments perform a wide range of adult and paediatric examinations, involving 18 technologists, 4 NM physicians, 2 nurses and 2 medical physicists; quoted in mSv. The average annual whole-body occupational radiation exposure for technologists, nurses, medical physicists and NM physicians over 4 years was 0.72, 0.94, 0.51 and 0.16 mSv, respectively. The reported annual occupational whole-body exposure for NM staff groups were in the acceptable range of published peer-reviewed data in the literature. However, a careful evaluation of working conditions for the nurse group is recommended to further minimise the radiation doses attributed to the recent increase in the number of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and PET diagnostic workload examinations. However, annual staff doses were found to be below the value recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).