Re: Medical and/or University Bioassay Programs

[kgordon@cc.UManitoba.CA]

To Kate and other interested RADSAFERS

About 3 years ago, Dr. Merv. Billinghurst and I received funding under the AECB 
Research program to conduct a national (Canadian) study of Tc-99m internal 
contamination in nuclear medicine workers.  The purpose of this project is to, 
for each worker, determine the frequency and magnitude of internal 
contamination, correlate the intake(s) with the types of handling procedures 
performed and estimate the associated internal radiation dose(s).  

We spent the first year of the project obtaining and evaluating various 
detection instruments that might be suitable, designing the measurement protocol 
and data collection tools and building shielded counting jigs.  We purchased  5 
identical counting systems.  We are in the currently in the final phase of 
gathering Tc-99m bioassay measurements on nuclear medicine and radiopharmacy 
workers in 19 different hospitals across Canada (14 NM departments have 
completed their measurements to date).  During each phase, bioassay measurements 
are performed daily over a 6 month period on all NM and RP workers handling 
radionuclides in 5 hospitals.  By the time the in-vivo measurements completed by 
mid-July of this year, we will have accumulated a considearable amount of data 
on 150+  workers distributed coast-to-coast across Canada.  

At the 1995 CRSO meeting in Los Angeles, I presented the results of our 
evaluation of the instrumentation and some preliminary results from the first 9 
participating nuclear medicine facilities.  I plan to present the final project 
results at the June 1997 joint CRPA/CRSO meeting in Victoria, B.C..  Dr. 
Billinghurst and I also intend to submit the results of this research project to 
an appropriate professional journal, most likely Health Physics.

We anticipate that the final results of this research project will be of 
considerable interest to nuclear medicine workers, RSOs, medical institutions 
and regulators in Canada and elsewhere.  Stay tuned.

Karin Gordon
Radiation Safety Office 		voice 	(204) 787-2903
GC-214, Health Sciences Centre		fax	(204) 787-1313
Winnipeg, Manitoba			e-mail	 KGordon@cc.umanitoba.ca
Canada R2M 0R9
     
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On Wed, 14 Feb 96, "Kathleen Hintenlang" <KATHLEEN@pliny.ehs.ufl.edu> wrote:
>We are curious to know if anyone is performing routine bioassay for 
>anything other than iodine and tritium, and if not, how do they 
>justify not doing it?  (For example how do you justify that a 
>nuc med tech's uptake of technetium, gallium, thallium, indium etc or 
>a researcher using P-32 etc is less than the 10% ALI.)
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>
>*************************************
>Kathleen M. Hintenlang
>Asst. Radiation Control Officer
>University of Florida/Shands Hospital
>P.O. Box 100252 JHMHC
>Gainesville, FL  32610-0252
>phone:  (352) 392-1589
>fax:    (352) 846-1626
>email:  khinten@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
>
>
>