SAFETY AND PROTECTION PROBLEMS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF A PLANT WITH CYCLOTRON, RADIOPHARMACY LABORATORY AND PET/CT EQUIPMENT

The importance of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is spreading and increasing in many clinical diagnostic fields, as well as the oncology, the cardiology, the neurology and so on. A strong input to the diffusion of this imaging technique from the research field to clinical one has been given either by the development of knowledge about PET or the modern technologies, which allow to set up at very suitable prices and in very little volumes, like in an hospital site, complete systems, which consist of: Cyclotron; Radiopharmacy Laboratory; one or more either PET or PET/CT. Such set-up arrangement allows to carry out highly innovative diagnostic examinations with a remarkable achievement of diagnostic quality and large number of daily examinations. In this paper the authors show the achieved know-how with respect to radioprotection for the set-up and running management of two systems such as PET/CT tomography unit, cyclotron and radiopharmacy laboratory, installed one in the Imaging Diagnostic Department of the Hospital of Naples University and used only for medical and research purposes, and the other one in A.C.O.M. (Advanced Center of Oncology in Macerata), used for commercial and research purposes. The following safety problems have been considered: the facility lay-out; the optimisation of the paths either for the operator, or the patients and the radiotracers; the guide lines for the protection and the safety of the patients, operators and general population, in relation to the utilization and the management of either the more common radiotracers (18F and 11C) or those in research progress, for example 64Cu and 124I; the protocol set up for the image quality control in relation to the patient protection and safety. The above problems have also been considered, taking into account the Italian regulation and the International Recommendations.