ORIGINAL ARTICLES 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine 2002 December;46(4):331-5

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Personal dosimetry of the staff during treatment of Neuroendocrine tumours with a high dose of Indium-111 Octreotide

Stokkel M. P. M. ¹, Boot I. N. ¹, Smit J. W. ²

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands 2 Endocrinology and Metabolic Disorders Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

Back­ground. Ther­a­peutic ­doses ­with ­Indium-111 (In-111)-­DTPA-Octre­o­tide are cur­rently ­used in ­patients ­with som­a­tos­tatin ­receptor pos­i­tive ­tumours. It may ­result in ­tumour regres­sion in ­some ­patients and ­this ­effect is ­ascribed to ­cell and ­receptor spe­cific cyto­tox­icity by ­Auger or con­ver­sion elec­trons. Per­sonnel ­being ­involved in ­this treat­ment may ­receive ­high radi­a­tion ­doses due to the emis­sion of 173 keV and 247 keV pho­tons. The aim of the ­present ­study was to ­assess the radi­a­tion ­dose to the per­sonnel at dif­ferent ­time inter­vals ­during treat­ment ­with Indium-111 Octre­o­tide.
­Methods. ­Five con­sec­u­tive ­patients suf­fering ­from a neu­ro­en­do­crine ­tumour ­were ­included in ­this dosim­etry ­study. In ­total, 18 treat­ments ­with Indium-111 Octre­o­tide ­have ­been ­given ­with a ­mean ­dose of 8000 MBq ­every ­three ­weeks. ­Three dosim­e­ters (­whole ­body, ­left and ­right ­hand) and a ­dose ­rate mon­itor ­were ­used to reg­ister ­doses and ­dose ­rates ­during label­ling, admin­is­tra­tion and in-­patient ­follow-up and ­whole ­body scin­tig­raphy. ­These pro­ce­dures ­were per­formed by a phar­ma­cist, a ­nuclear phy­si­cian and a tech­nol­o­gist, respec­tively.
­Results. The ­whole ­body ­dose ­received ­during the label­ling pro­ce­dure was 5 μSv. The ­mean ­total expo­sure ­time ­during admin­is­tra­tion, ­whole ­body scin­tig­raphy and clin­ical ­follow-up was 47 min­utes ­revealing a ­mean ­whole ­body ­dose of 45 μSv. The ­mean radi­a­tion ­dose to the ­hands was 60 μSv per treat­ment.
Con­clu­sions. The radi­a­tion ­risk to ­staff mem­bers and tech­nol­o­gists ­seems to be ­very low ­during in-­patient treat­ments ­with ­high ­dose Indium-111 Octre­o­tide. ­According to the ­safety reg­u­la­tions no spe­cial radi­a­tion pro­tec­tion meas­ures or per­sonal dosim­etry is ­required.