This paper aims to determine the levels of exposure to neutron and photon radiation among the personnel engaged in cyclotron operation and the personnel engaged in the production of radiopharmaceuticals, with the use of the environmental radiation monitoring system (RMS) installed in the positron emission tomography laboratory. The annual exposures of employees operating the cyclotron measured with the use of the RMS system are: 1.39 ± 0.16 mSv in case of photon radiation and 2.61 ± 0.14 mSv in case of neutron radiation. In the case of employees in the radiopharmaceuticals’ production zone, the annual exposures measured by means of the RMS system are 0.15 ± 0.03 mSv in case of photon radiation and 0.11 ± 0.01 mSv in case of neutron radiation. The exposure levels among the personnel engaged in cyclotron operation and the personnel engaged in the production of radiopharmaceuticals are below the permissible radiation dose limits.

Objectives: Vascular and interventional radiology procedures are characterized by high exposure of personnel to ionizing radiation. This study assessed the exposure of medical personnel to ionizing radiation during vascular radiology and mechanical thrombectomy procedures. Material and...

A major disadvantage of dose reconstruction by means of thermoluminescence (TL) is the fact that during readout of any TL material exposed to ionizing radiation (i.e., during measuring the glow curve), the radiation-induced signal gets lost. Application of the photo-transferred thermoluminescence phenomenon (PTTL) may offer a solution to this problem. In PTTL, the residual signal that is not destroyed by conventional TL readout (because it comes from deeper electron traps) can be readout through simultaneous stimulation by UV light and heating, allowing to obtain information about the absorbed dose in a second run. The present paper describes the application of PTTL for emergency dose assessment. For this, MTS-N thermoluminescent detectors (LiF: Mg, Ti) were exposed using a high-energy Clinac 2300 medical linear accelerator to doses of 100 mGy, 300 mGy, 500 mGy, 700 mGy and 1000 mGy. Irradiation with UV radiation allowed the determination of the optimal heating time of 3 h, while the optimal temperature was identified to be 70 °C. The results obtained demonstrated the usefulness of the PTTL method for emergency dose assessment. The efficiency of the PTTL method was determined as 19%. Finally it was found that the detector background after UV exposure should not be underestimated during routine dose measurements.

During the production of ¹⁸F, as a result of the interaction of the beam of protons and secondary neutrons with the structural elements of the target body, many radionuclide impurities are created in the cyclotron. As part of this work, we theoretically predicted which isotopes would be activated in the target tantalum or silver bodies. Subsequently, we used gamma spectrometry analysis to verify these predictions. The results were compared with the work of other authors who studied titanium and niobium as materials for making the target body. Tantalum has been evaluated as the most favorable in terms of generating radionuclide impurities during the production of ¹⁸F by irradiation of ¹⁸O-enriched water in accelerated proton cyclotrons. Only three radionuclides were identified in the tested samples: ¹⁸¹W, ¹⁸¹Hf, and ¹⁸²Ta with a half-life of fewer than 120 days. The remaining reactions led to the formation of stable isotopes.

A comparative analysis of the mean glandular doses was conducted in 100 female patients who underwent screening mammography in 2011 and 2013. Siemens Mammomat Novation with the application of the W/Rh anode/filter combination was used in 2011, whereas in 2013 anode/filter combination was Mo/Mo or Mo/Rh. The functioning of mammography was checked and the effectiveness of the automatic exposure control (AEC) system was verified by measuring compensation of changes in the phantom thickness and measuring tube voltage. On the base of exposure parameters, an average glandular dose for each of 100 female patients was estimated. The images obtained by using AEC system had the acceptable threshold contrast visibility irrespective of the applied anode/filter combination. Mean glandular doses in the females, examined with the application of the W/Rh anode/filter combination, were on average 23.6% lower than that of the Mo/Mo or Mo/Rh anode/filter combinations. It is recommended to use a combination of the W/Rh anode /filter which exhibited lower mean glandular doses.