Management of the radioprotection for the workers and the patients in a PET Department with Cyclotron and Radiopharmacy Laboratory, in respect of Italian regulation

Purpose: The importance of 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 has been given also by the development of the modern technologies, which allow to set up, 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. To set up this system it is necessary to follow the legal dispositions, which the Italian Government promulgated to establish the objectives and the modalities to assure the safety and the radioprotection of the workers, population and patients. Method: For the authorization procedures, from safety and radioprotection point of view, the following safety problems must be considered: -the facility lay-out; -the optimization of the paths either for the operator, the patients and the radiotracers; -the guide lines for the protection and the safety of the patients, operators and general population; -the protocol set up for the image quality control in relation to the patient protection and safety. Results: The result of the above rigorous series of analysis, is the draft of a detailed technical report, which is requested for the authorization by the government offices. In this paper the Authors show the achieved know-how with respect to radioprotection for the set-up and running management of the system such as PET/CT tomography unit, cyclotron and radio-pharmacy laboratory, installed in the Imaging Diagnostic Department of the Policlinico Tor Vergata of Rome Tor Vergata University. Conclusions: The three years management of the PTV plant show that the suitable solution of the safety problems allows both to optimize the protection of workers and to reduce the patient's dose, and also to have a better cost-benefit ratio.