A multi-institutional assessment of eye lens dose in nuclear medicine clinics.

Aim: The endeavor was to measure the lens dose of actively working staff in nuclear medicine departments.

Material And Methods: This study was accomplished in three nuclear medicine sites. A total of 23 workers in nuclear medicine joined this work. Among them are 6 SPECT/ CT technologists, 6 PET/CT technologists, 3 PET/MRI technologists, 5 radiopharmacists, 2 physicists, and 1 physician. EXTDOSE Hp(3) OSL dosimeter with tissue equivalent beryllium-oxide crystal was used for lens dose measurement. All participants were asked to wear the lens dosimeter for 2 months as near to the eye level as possible.

Results: Pooling the dose measures together yielded an average lens dose of 1.48 ± 0.77 mSv for the radiopharmacy team, 1.44 ± 0.26 for PET/ CT technologists, 0.86 ± 0.45 mSv for SPECT/ CT technologists, 0.38 mSv for the sole physician administered 177Lu, and 0.45 ± 0.02 mSv for the physicists conducting 131I therapy. Moreover, normalizing the lens dose to the labeled activity led to a lens dose of 2.2 ± 1.4 µSv/GBq for the radiopharmacy team. Likewise, per administered activity: 23.8 ± 7.3 µSv/GBq for PET/CT and PET/MRI technologists, 12.2 ± 10.5 µSv/GBq 99mTc for SPECT/CT technologists, 6.0 ± 0.81 µSv/GBq 131I for physicists, and 3.0 µSv/GBq 177Lu for the physician.

Conclusion: It was deduced that the annual occupational lens dose of the nuclear medicine workers varied from 2.3 to 11.5 mSv/year; however, one radiopharmacist projected annual lens dose as close to the lens equivalent dose limit (20 mSv/year) as 17.9 mSv.