Abstract
Aim: According to the UNSCEAR 2008 report, physicians, technicians, nurses and others involved in the medical field with a total number of monitored staff exceeding 7.5 million workers constitute the largest single group of occupationally exposed to man-made sources of radiation. The objective of this work was to compare our tertiary care medical Centre occupational radiation dose levels to the ones published in the UNSCEAR 2008 report. Materials and Methods: Examination of the personal dosimetry records of the past five years from 2012 to 2016 is conducted and average radiation doses received by the staff are calculated including the total accumulated last 5 years doses. The radiation doses were measured using thermo luminescence dosimeters (TLD). The total number of monitored staff was 538 and 274 from our medical center and from the other centers that we cover respectively. Results: The levels of occupational exposures in our hospital and other medical institutions compares very well with the internationally and nationally reported results. The annual average for the five years period under examination in this work was 0.4, 0.8 and 0.5 mSv for the diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation therapy groups respectively. Our minimal detection limit for personal dosimetry reporting is 0.1 mSv. Conclusions: The results of the measured annual doses were well below the ICRP recommended annual dose limit of 20 mSv. Our results compare very well with the UNSCEAR 2008 report. In general the application of ionizing radiation in Medicine is a safe practice for the occupationally exposed workers.
Highlights
Systematic reviews of the occupational radiation dose records in the medical field serve many purposes
The objective of this work was to compare our tertiary care medical Centre occupational radiation dose levels to the ones published in the UNSCEAR 2008 report
The reported personal doses in this study are based on the reading of Hp (10) which is the dose received by tissue at 10 mm below the skin surface and is considered equivalent to the dose delivered to the whole body, often noted as whole body dose on the personal dosimetry report
Summary
Systematic reviews of the occupational radiation dose records in the medical field serve many purposes. Soliman K et al Occupational radiation doses in medicine the as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) concept in radiation protection regulations at the national level. It allows the identification of areas in need for optimization of radiation protection practice at the local level. It may serve as assurance to the employees that their work place has adequate radiation protection measures and infrastructure or there is a need to improve the safety of their workplace depending on radiation dose levels observed. Radiation doses received by the technologist are very low or even non-measurable
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