Radiation protection recommendations for I-131 thyrotoxicosis, thyroid cancer and phaeochromocytoma patients

Abstract

Iodine-131 patients pose a radiation risk to their family members, carers and colleagues. Doses from thyrotoxicosis and thyroid cancer patients undergoing standard treatments have been well characterised in the literature. However the resulting precautions cannot be easily adapted to circumstances where the patient has an unusual affliction, or an atypical family or occupational environment. In this study, a model for calculating dose from an I-131 patient is derived from first principles. The model is combined with existing results from the literature to determine a distance weighting factor between patients and family members. This technique reduces the uncertainty in the dose calculations by removing the need to guess the unknown patterns of close contact, a problem common to all previous dose calculation techniques. Data is presented for four unusual I-131 treatments; a child thyroid cancer patient, two thyroid cancer dialysis patients and a phaeochromocytoma patient. The model is used to calculate appropriate periods of restricted contact for these patients. The recommendations provide a useful guide for future unusual I-131 treatments.