A Retrospective Study for Total Effective Doses of Nuclear Medicine Employees in Istanbul, Turkey

Thermoluminescence dosimeters (TLDs) are safely used to determine radiation doses. This study describes the radiation exposure doses of the radiation employees working at the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty in Turkey, where both radionuclide treatment and diagnostic imaging are done at a large scale. According to our results, the average effective dose value over five years belonging to an employee who works at radionuclide treatment service was found to have the highest value as 3.58±1.60 mSv. On the other hand, the average effective dose over a of total 29 employees is 1.53±0.59 mSv. A 5-year average effective dose was found as 1.29 mSv for technicians and 2.38 mSv for nurses. These results demonstrated that the radiation doses received by the employees working in different units are considerably different from each other. However, the doses received by all the workers in these units are under the regulatory limit. In conclusion, homogenized dose distribution between employees can be achieved in case of job rotations in-between