Diagnostic Nuclear Medicine for Paediatric Patients in Australia: Assessing the Individual's Dose Burden.

We report data for all Australians aged 0-19 y who underwent publicly funded nuclear medicine studies between 1985 and 2005, inclusive. Radiation doses were estimated for individual patients for 95 different types of studies. There were 374 848 occasions of service for 277 511 patients with a collective effective dose of 1123 Sievert (Sv).

Impact of relative head sensitivity differences in multi-head gamma cameras.

Cerebral perfusion single photon emission computer tomography (SPECT) can be used to identify epileptogenic foci. A (99m)Tc ethyl cysteinate dimer SPECT of the brain showed clinically evident differences in uptake between the CT attenuation corrected image and the Chang attenuation corrected image. The upper right hemisphere of the brain showed apparent diffuse hyperperfusion in the CT attenuation corrected image while the Chang attenuation corrected image, after reconstruction that appears to average projections, showed symmetrical cerebral perfusion.

Estimated dose from diagnostic nuclear medicine patients to people outside the Nuclear Medicine department.

Patients undergoing nuclear medicine scans can be a source of radiation exposure for staff, family and the public. In this paper, 12 common nuclear medicine scans are considered. Doses are estimated for a range of scenarios, to hospital staff, to the public and to the patients' co-workers and family.

Correlation of various published radionuclide glomerular filtration rate estimation techniques and proposed paediatric normative data.

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the comparability and interchangeability of the radionuclide glomerular filtration rate (GFR) using different published techniques, and propose normative data for paediatrics.

Methods: A total of 476 paediatric oncology patients aged 2-17 years, referred between January 2001 and December 2008 for GFR estimation, were reviewed for any potential cause of renal impairment. Sixty-nine patients met the stringent inclusion criteria, and were included in the study.

Dosimetry and toxicity of Quadramet for bone marrow ablation in multiple myeloma and other haematological malignancies.

Standard treatment regimens for haematological malignancies include myeloablative chemoradiotherapy and subsequent rescue by stem cell transplantation. However, these treatment regimens have significant associated mortality and morbidity, and disease recurrence remains a problem. One alternative approach is the targeted delivery of radiotherapy to the marrow using a bone-seeking agent labelled with an appropriate radioisotope, with the aim of delivering a potentially ablative radiation dose to marrow while minimising non-haematological toxicity.

Estimating uptake in liver and abdominal tumours for radionuclide therapy dosimetry.

Historically, patients for radionuclide therapy have received fixed activities, sometimes normalized to body weight or body surface area. As radionuclide therapy develops, however, practitioners are becoming interested in individualized doses. This requires individual estimates of uptake to be routinely available.

Measuring and minimizing the radiation dose to nuclear medicine technologists.

Objective: Nuclear medicine technologists rely on a single dosimeter to measure their work-related dose. Estimates of whole-body effective dose are based on the assumptions that the radiation is incident from the front and in a uniform beam. We sought to investigate these assumptions and also to quantify doses associated with different activities.