Re: Room Design for I131 Therapies

["Mike Bohan" <mike.bohan@yale.edu>]

        Reply to:   RE>Room Design for I131 Therapies

Chris & RadSafe:

We use a standard hospital room, although since we had the opportunity a few years ago to build a new building we installed 1/2" lead walls in the rooms.  These rooms are also used for our Cs-137, Ir-192, and Ra-226 brachytherapy rooms.  (Yes, We still occasionally use Radium!).  We cover all surfaces that the patient might touch with disposable blue covers or saran wrap.  We cover the floor with "Herculite".  It's used by the power industry types quite a lot and you can get it from industrial nuclear suppliers on 4 foot rolls.  It's a lot easier to cover the floors in square rooms, some of our rooms are triangular shaped which makes them harder to cover.  Remember to tape the floor securely.  You don't want the patient to trip!  The only surface that I've seen that decons easily from I-131 is stainless steel and porcelain.  So covering seems the only way to go if you have to release the room between therapy patients. 

Later,
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Michael J. Bohan, RSO   |  e-mail: mike.bohan@yale.edu
Yale-New Haven Hospital |    Tele: (203) 688-2950
Radiological Physics    |     FAX: (203) 737-4252
20 York St. - WWW 204   |    As usual, everything I say may be plausibly
New Haven, CT    06504  |    denied at my employer's convenience ...
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--------------------------------------
Date: 03/06/1998 5:27 PM
To: Mike Bohan
From: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
Does anyone remember, or have a reference for, an article about
purpose-designing such a room, i.e., looking at the questions of what sort
of surfaces, fixtures, etc., offer the most efficient decontaminations?

 >chris alston
>alstonc@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu