Estimated Inpatient Hospital Stay in Individual Wards: Guidelines on Radiation Safety after Radioiodine Therapy

Radionuclide therapy safety requirements are regulated by the Russian Radiation Safety Standards (RRSS), which state the maximum allowed radionuclide activity in the body and the equivalent dose rate (EDR) of gamma radiation. Therefore, it is necessary to estimate the time of an inpatient hospital stay in specially designed radionuclide therapy wards. The article presents the findings of individual 131I biokinetics studies in 64 patients admitted to radioiodine therapy of thyrotoxicosis and differentiated thyroid cancer. We developed a method to calculate the time interval to reach the EDR of 20μSv/h and the recommended EDR of 3 and 0.3μSv/h for adults and children, respectively. It is based on the measurement of the 131I excretion constant. Keywords: Radioiodine therapy, Radiation safety, Guidelin