What effect does decreasing administered activity to patients have on technologist absorbed radiation doses?

Objective: 1. Determine any change in technologist absorbed body or hand dose when changing administered activity protocols. 2. Assess if any change in radiation dose to technologists is significant. 3. Assess if any change in radiation dose to technologists is sustained. Methods: Dose equivalent readings from our institution's Landauer® body dosimetry badges and ring badges were analyzed from before changes in administered activities to patients were initiated and immediately following the change. Subsequent readings from 1 year later were also analyzed to assess whether or not any change in radiation dose was sustained. This was performed by ANOVA testing. As this was performed as part of internal quality control, no IRB approval was needed. Results: No significant change was identified in either body (p = 0.852) or hand doses (p = 0.810) immediately following the change in protocols. The 1 year follow-up readings are also not significant for the body (p = 0.417) or hand doses (p = 0.293). These readings suggest a trend toward significance to lowered absorbed radiation doses to the body and hand. This is not unexpected since the administered activity handled by the technologists is overall lower. Conclusions: There was great concern on the part of the our technologists that changing administered activity to lower radiation doses to patients would increase technologist radiation dose, particularly the hand dose due to the perception of increased dose manipulation. We found no significant change in technologist radiation exposure despite the changes to our protocols. This project serves to allay that concern and also informs us that decreasing patient doses is something that should not increase the risk of additional radiation exposure to our technologist co-workers. In addition, the follow-up data one year later shows a trend toward decreasing radiation doses.