[ RadSafe ] Iodine Therapy Rooms

[Dale Boyce]

Jay,

It has been awhile since I had to deal with this, but when I was a hospital 
RSO, we used Whatman Benchcoat (tm). It is a smooth eggshell type paper with 
a tight plastic backing. We put it down with duct tape (the original 
manufacturer really did call it "duck" tape).

It was much less of a hazard as it was a relatively stiff paper that laid 
flat if a little attention was given when installing it. We left a small gap 
between strips so that tape held the assembly down somewhat at 30" 
intervals. Plastic side down, so that the paper would absorb the, blood, 
sweat, a tears (as well as the urine).

Don't even think about not covering grouted tile in a bathroom floor. It is 
porous, and it will never come clean, except by decay. Grouted tile around 
the sink isn't usually a huge problem, as the concentration of iodine it 
sees is low.

Memory is fading somewhat, but I think we finally made the toilet and sink 
cleaning easier by using an tincture of iodine solution as opposed to an 
iodide solution. Vague recollection that betadine may have also worked.

The thing you really do NOT want to do is throw NaI or KI down on a floor 
and then use a chlorinated cleanser like Ajax or Comet. It took about two 
seconds for the chemist in me wake up and go "Oh S***". It took about two 
weeks working 4 hours a day on hands and knees for me to change the color of 
the floor  back to an off white tile color from the dirty yellow brown of an 
iodinated vinyl floor. (I could have, but would not delegate that 
"pleasure").

In my defense, most patients use the toilet instead of the floor 
exclusively. Initial dose rate in the patient's bathroom was tens of mrad 
waist height from beta radiation.  When we were done the toilet was clean 
without any decon! (Duh, it wasn't used.)

Dale

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Poston Jr,Jay" <jposton at mdanderson.org>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:29 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Iodine Therapy Rooms


We are looking to change our process for preparing our iodine therapy rooms. 
Right now we paper the floor and the bath room with "butcher paper" and 
incontinent pads.  We cover just about everything else with plastic or 
incontinent pads, also.  Recently some concerns have been raised about a 
tripping hazard existing due to the papered floors.  Nuclear Medicine and 
Nursing wants to stop papering the floors, but of course they aren't the 
ones performing the decontamination and this won't increase their work.  Any 
other suggestions out there on a better approach to protecting the floors?

The room floor is linoleum and the bathroom floor is grouted tiles, so we 
are also looking to remove the old flooring and to cover them with some kind 
of epoxy flooring with rounded corners and coping.  Anyone have any success 
(or bad experiences) with such an approach?

Finally, the thought came up to change out the ceramic sink and toilet with 
stainless steel.  Anyone have any success (or bad experiences) with such an 
approach?

Thanks,
Jay Poston

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