Empirical measurements to ensure compliance with post therapy dose constraints to family members of radioiodine therapy patients

Sammanfattning: Radioiodine has been used in nuclear medicine for the treatment of thyroid diseases such as Thyroid Cancer and Thyrotoxicosis for many years. The treatment renders the patient radioactive. To minimize the dose to the patients’ relatives and the general public, restric-tions are imposed on the behaviour of the patient. This project presents the person dose equivalents actually received by family members of radioiodine patients following such restrictions. The family members wore hospital ID-bands on left and right wrists for up to four weeks. Each ID-band contained two LiF: Mg, Ti Thermo Luminescence Dosimeters (TLD) calibrated to measure air kerma. The TLDs were analysed and a total person dose equivalent received by the relative was calculated from the measured air kerma values. The results were compared to the dose constraints imposed by The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority (SSI FS 2000:3) in order to confirm that the new set of restrictions used at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge maintains the dose to family members below the applicable limits. A total number of 22 relatives were recruited, 8 elderly, 7 adults and 7 children. Of the recruited relatives 4 (2 adults, 2 children) were excluded from the study as they had lost their dosimeter ID-bands or had other reasons not to participate in the study. This leaves the number of relatives used for data analysis at 18 individuals (8 elderly, 5 adults and 5 children) with a min age of 10 years and max age of 80 years. The observed average person dose equivalent of 0.43 mSv (max, 1.27; min, 0.12) indi-cates that the new method of individualised restriction used at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge work as desired in keeping the dose to family members at an accept-able level. The accuracy of the clinical study has been shown to depend greatly on the method by which the dose is investigated but also on the properties of the TLD material used. There is a potential underestimation of air kerma due to fading of up to 30 %. In addition there are contributing uncertainties from both the calibration method and the conversion to person dose equivalent with the combined uncertainty estimated to be 14%.