Equine scintigraphy safety

Re: Equine scintigraphy safety

Nicola Smith — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:40:23 GMT

Thanks everyone your replies have been really helpful

Re: Equine scintigraphy safety

Nick Shackleton — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:22:10 GMT

Forgot to mention the use of lead syringe guards. All vials that containing radiopharmaceuitcals are stored in lead pots. The lids have a drilled hole to enable drawing off doses. When not in use vials should be stored in ahead safe. We also use sealed sources of radiation used for QA purposes and marking images. These are stored in the same way as the unsealed sources (radiopharmaceuitcals). Generally only wear gowns when in close proximity to patients for prolonged periods, such as interventional procedures. The inverse square law, cast you mind back to your training, can be employed in the same way when dealing with patients that are radioactive.

Re: Equine scintigraphy safety

SuzyM — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:07:57 GMT

Hi. We perform equine scintigraphy on a regular basis. We wear our normal radiation body dosemeters plus an extremitiy dosemeter which is worn on the finger like a ring. We do not wear lead gowns as apparently (and I do not know where the reasearch supporting this is to found), lead gowns can slow the passage of gamma radiation through your body causing more damage. It's something to do with the wavelength being a higher frequency and not being able to travel as far (as x-radiation). The best protection we use to stay at least one metre away from the patient as much as is practical. We wear latex gloves to minimise skin contact with sweat and shoe covers which can be quickly removed if they become contaminated. The patient is given a dose of 'dimazon' one hour before the procedure to minimise the likelihood of them urinating in the scanning room. The stables are not mucked out until 3 days later (horse is moved to a clean box after 48 hrs), the bedding is checked with a geiger counter before being disposed of on the main muck heap. Feed and water are deposited just inside the door so staff don't have to go in the stable, and warning signs and barriers are placed to prevent unauthorised people from wandering in.

I hope this is of some help.

Re: Equine scintigraphy safety

Nick Shackleton — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 15:52:45 GMT

I work in human nuclear medicine. There are three main forms of protection. These are time, distance and protection. We wear usual monitoring badges as in plain film radiography. The yearly dose that you can legally receive is 20msv usual ppe is lead gowns. Tc99m is usually used for 90% of nuclear medicine examinations, which has a half life of 6hrs, therefore every 6hrs there is half of the original dose given to the patient. There maybe specific care for equine patients as I can imagine the doses given to them would be considerably higher than those given to human patients. Our waste material such as clinical waste eg gloves, syringe and sharps are stored in lead storage facility and monitored using a Geiger Counter and are only disposed of once reding at or below background radiation. Hope this helps any other questions feel free to ask

Re: Equine scintigraphy safety

Steph Worsley — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 14:56:43 GMT

I can't help you directly, however I am sure my colleagues over at the equine hospital will be able to help, they do scintigraphy on a reasonably regular basis I am lead to believe: 0151 794 6041 is the main number for the hospital.

Hope they help!