• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.3347-3352
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• 2010

It is recommended that the door of control room is closed during radiography to protect a radiologic technologist. However, for those patients such as of emergency or pediatrics, the door must be kept open unavoidably to apply immediate medical administration and treatment on the potential case of emergency which could be happened through the course of radiography. In addition, it could be efficient by reducing patients waiting time when the door is open for a general case. This study was conducted to evaluate practical exposure rate to a radiologic technologist when the door is open during the radiography, and to find out the ways to minimize radiation exposure and to increase the efficiency simultaneously. Measuring practical exposure rate was fulfilled with glass dosimeter, and it was 2.02 mGy/week at the location of radiologic technologist under the condition that the door is open during the radiography, which was about 2.3 times higher than the 100 mR/week. It means that the considerable amount of scattered rays through the door opening, and increase exposure rate at the radiologic technologist. Hence we confirmed that a radiologic technologist probably overexposed if the door is open during the radiography. It was also confirmed by the Monte Carlo simulation that the exposure rate could be reduced up to approximately 1/100 by change only the door opening direction. In conclusion, since the proper door opening direction provides same shielding effect whether it is open or close, the door opening direction need to be considered when it is installed at radiography facilities.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.2118-2123
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• 2010

Korean individual occupational exposure control is focused on the retrospective service to the over-exposed person by the reading of personal dosimeter. Since the radiophamaceuticals using in the nuclear medicine department are uncontained radiation sources, the potential exposure at working environment is very high. Moreover, a patient remains radioactive for hours or even days after the administration of a radiopharmaceutical for diagnosis or treatment. Thus, the proper working environmental exposure control must be established and executed to protect not only the affiliated employees, but also guardians accompanying patients and temporarily visiting public from the exposure by the patients. Japanese radiation protection law regulates working environmental radiation exposure by regularly measuring and filing the environmental dose for years. This study was aimed at measuring working environmental radiation dose in the nuclear medicine department of an university hospital located in Daejeon, Korea. We measured the accumulation radiation dose in air at 8 locations in the nuclear medicine department by using the same method as in Japan with glass dosimeters. The highest dose rate, 0.23 mSv per month, was measured at the waiting room, and the second one is at reception desk. Even though the doses were lower than the Korean constraint dose rate (0.3 mSv/week) at the boundary of the radiation controlled area, it was over the dose limit of public (1 mSv/y) and environment (0.25 mSv/y). Conclusionally, it was found that the new or additional procedure was necessary to less the exposure dose to the receptionist and guardians by the environmental radiation dose in the nuclear medicine department.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.149-157
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• 1998

An analysis has been performed to estimate the additional number of workers and the additional collective dose in man-cSv which would be required, nuclear industry-wide as a result of reducing individual dose limit. This analysis can be extended to the reduction in the dose limits recommended by ICRP Publ.60 and BEIR V report as well as the proposed dose limits by regulatory authorities. An industry-wide database was employed in the analysis based on a summary of industry-wide occupational radiation exposure compiled by the Korea Radioisotope Association. Correlation model was employed to compute the affects of setting specific annual individual dose limits. In this study, we have addressed worker non-productivity while in the radiation environment on a parametric or 'sensitivity analysis' basis. This alleviates the need for developing such data underlying a summation of many individual tasks at many nuclear facilities. It has the advantage that very low non-productivity assumptions can readily be defended as conservative, in that it is difficult to approach such low worker non-productivity factors even in the best of environments in any industry. On a per facility basis, for calendar year 1997, the number of workers required would be increased from 231 workers to 269 workers and collective man-cSv dose would be also increased by approximately fourteen percent if the individual dose limit was reduced to 2 cSv/y and an individual worker non-productivity fraction of 0.1 is assumed.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.32-35
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• 2016

Purpose The goal for this study is to figure out that medical staff except Nuclear Medicine Department could be exposed to radiation from the patients who take Nuclear Medicine examination. Materials and Methods Total 250 patients (Bone scan 100, Myocardial SPECT 100, PET/CT 50) were involved from July to October in 2015, and we measured patient dose rate two times for every patients. First, we checked radiation dose rate right after injecting an isotope (radiopharmaceutical). Secondly, we measured radiation dose rate after each examination. Results In the case of Bone scan, dose rate were $0.0278{\pm}0.0036mSv/h$ after injection and $0.0060{\pm}0.0018mSv/h$ after examination (3 hrs 52 minutes after injection on average). For Myocardial SPECT, dose rate were $0.0245{\pm}0.0027mSv/h$ after injection and $0.0123{\pm}0.0041mSv/h$ after examination (2 hrs 09 minutes after injection on average). Lastly, for PET/CT, dose rate were $0.0439{\pm}0.0087mSv/h$ after examination (68 minutes after injection on average). Conclusion Compared to Nuclear Safety Commission Act, there was no significant harmful effect of the exposure from patients who have been administered radiopharmaceuticals. However, we should strive to keep ALARA(as low as reasonably achievable) principle for radiation protection.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2014

This study was conducted to propose medical radioactive waste management methods by background factors of radioactive workers, their awareness of safety management and reduce the difficulty of self-disposal. A population of 102 radiotechnologist who work at hospital in Busan was the subject of this study and a survey was conducted to them. the analysis for the collected data used SPSS/PC+Win13 version and one-way, ANOVA was carried out of verify differences between the groups. The result showed that most of workers had correct awareness of radioactive waste management. Also, about the difficulty of self-disposal, legal procedures were mentioned most often, and as efficient improvement of management methods is concerned, changing the awareness of safety management and disposal was proposed. According to this study, the right way of managing medical radioactive waste is to change the awareness of radioactive workers by reinforcing regular training.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.149-156
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• 2013

Recent domestic use of radiations has increased in the number of institutions and companies as well as operating as an investment, a variety of facilities and safety management are becoming increasingly complex. Despite the increase of radiation workers and facilities, the number of RSOs (Radiation Safety Officers) has not increased with a growing domestic radiation industry. The radiation safety management work (radiation workers management, radiation sources management, facilities management etc.) has been managed by insufficient number of the RSOs. These problems could be directly or indirectly related to causes of the radiation accidents. In this paper, we designed the Process Mapping of radiation safety management work for an efficient safety management of the radiation facilities and protection of radiation accidents. To develop the Process Mapping, we analyzed the radiation safety requirements of management issues and the individual procedures. Based on the Process Mapping, the work procedures for an appropriate radiation safety management of each institution can be configured clearly. Through this procedures, the safety risk factors in radiation facilities can be reduced, and the radiation safety management system will be improved. Depending on your needs, the Process Mapping could be modified and could be used for an efficient radiation safety management.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2009

Proton therapy facility, which is recently installed at National Cancer Center in Korea, generally produces a large amount of radiation near cyclotron due to the secondary particles and radioisotopes caused by collision between proton and nearby materials during the acceleration. Although the level of radiation by radioisotope decreases in length of time, radiation exposure problem still exists since workers are easily exposed by a low level of radiation for a long time due to their job assignment for maintenance or repair of the proton facility. In this paper, the working environment near cyclotron, where the highest radiation exposure is expected, was studied by measuring the degree of radiation and its duration for an appropriate level of protective action guide. To do this, we measured the radiation change in the graphite based energy degrader, the efficiency of transmitted beam and relative activation degree of the transmission beam line. The results showed that while the level of radiation exposure around cyclotron and beam line during the operation is much higher than the other radiation therapy facilities, the radiation exposure rate per year is under the limit recommended by the law showing 1~3 mSv/year.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.57-62
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• 2010

Maintenance on the water chamber of steam generator, the change of pressurizer heater, the removal of pressure tube feeder, and so on during outage in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has a likelihood of high radiation exposure to whole body of workers even short time period due to the high radiation exposure rates. In particular, it is expected that hands would receive the highest radiation exposure because of its contact with radiation materials. In this study, field tests on extremity dose assessment of radiation workers for contact works with high radiation exposure were conducted during the maintenance periods in Korean pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs). In this field test, radiation workers were required to wear additional TLDs on the back and wrist, and an extremity dosimeter on fingers including a main TLD on the chest, while performing maintenance. As a result, it was found that the equivalent dose for fingers was distributed in the fixed range of deep dose and the equivalent dose for wrists.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.52-59
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• 2013

The internal contamination screening method using gross beta measurement was performed for radioisotope workers. 24 h and spot urine samples from workers of medical isotope production facilities were collected and measured. Most of the results were similar with the background level of gross beta activity except for a specific worker. Gross beta activity was slightly increased in several hours after finishing work. And the environmental factor of production facilities causing internal contamination were estimated based on screening results. The additional detailed internal dose assessment must be followed after the screening for protection of workers. Moreover, a procedure was established to apply a simple internal contamination assessment for radiation workers.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.45-50
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• 1989

Radiation exposure of the personnel in the neutron therapy facility of KCCH cyclotron neutron system is discussed. In neutron therapy room, medical personnel is exposed to photons of the remanent induced radioactivity from the isocentric gantry in which targets and collimators are mounted. The radiation level of the neutron therapy room of KCCH cyclotron was acceptable and it decreased immediately after beam off. Personal exposure measured by individual monitor was far less than permissible level.