Abstract
When responding to an emergency radiological incident, rapid methods are needed toprovide the physicians and radiation protection personnel with an early estimation ofpossible internal dose resulting from the inhalation of radionuclides. This information isneeded so that appropriate medical treatment and radiological protection controlprocedures can be implemented. Nasal swab analysis, which employs swabs swiped inside anostril followed by liquid scintillation counting of alpha and beta activity on theswab, could provide valuable information to quickly identify contamination ofthe affected population. In this study, various parameters (such as alpha/betadiscrimination, swab materials, counting time and volume of scintillation cocktail etc) wereevaluated in order to optimise the effectiveness of the nasal swab analysis method. Animproved nasal swab procedure was developed by replacing cotton swabs withpolyurethane-tipped swabs. Liquid scintillation counting was performed using a Hidex300SL counter with alpha/beta pulse shape discrimination capability. Results show thatthe new method is more reliable than existing methods using cotton swabs andeffectively meets the analysis requirements for screening personnel in an emergencysituation. This swab analysis procedure is also applicable to wipe tests of surfacecontamination to minimise the source self-absorption effect on liquid scintillation counting.
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