Isotopes Dr. Enaam Kahlil

Safety precautions with radioactive materials in the working area.

Points to take into consideration: Radioactive rays are penetrating and ionizing and can therefore destroy living cells. Small does of radiation over an extended period may cause cancer and eventually death. Strong does can kill instantly. Ionizing radiation is used in diagnostic imaging, external-beam radiation therapy, and nuclear medicine to diagnose and treat a number of common conditions. To ensure the safety of patients, providers, and surrounding staff members, it is important that the health care community become familiar with the terminology, common equipment, and standard practices used in radiation safety and monitoring. Several precautions should be observed while handling radioisotopes. Some of these are listed in the following:-

1-Personal Protective Clothing: 1-For any work with an open radioactive source, wear: disposable gloves (latex or nitrile gloves are generally suitable). a full-length lab coat (worn closed with sleeves rolled down). close-toed shoes. Never wear sandals or other open-toed shoes while working with radioactivity. 2-Safety Glasses. 3-Protecting Your Wrists: Lab coat cuffs may hang down and drag across contaminated surfaces. To protect the skin of your wrists, consider one of the following steps: Wrap tape around your lab coat sleeve or put a rubber band around the sleeve to keep the cuff from dragging. Wear long gloves and tuck your lab coat into the gloves.

4-keep personal items such as handbags, etc., outside the lab 5-Use appropriate radiation shields. 6-To avoid internal contamination, strict hygiene is essential when handling radioactive materials. 7-No radioactive substance should be handled with bare hands. Alpha and beta emitters can be handled using thick gloves. Gamma ray emitters must be handled only by remote control that is by mechanical means Gamma rays are the most dangerous and over exposure can lead to serious biological damage.

2-Food and Beverages No Eating or Drinking: Do not eat or drink in any room labeled with a Caution: Radioactive Materials sign on the door. No Storage: Do not store food, beverages, or medicines in refrigerators, freezers or cold-rooms where radioactive materials are used or stored. Storing Food & Items in Your Desk: You may store your food, water bottles, beverages, medicines, coffee mugs, eating utensils, etc. in your closed desk in a radioisotope use lab, but you are not permitted to have these items out on top of your desk or any other surfaces.   

3-Security Stock Vials:  Lock radioactive stock materials and sealed sources in a secured container or a secured storage area when not in use. Tethered Lock Box:  If you store your stock vials in a lockbox, the lockbox must be tethered to a surface with a secure cable or the lock box must either be kept in a locked freezer or refrigerator. Locking the Lab: Do not leave radioactive materials unsecured in an unattended lab, even for a short time, unless the lab is locked

4-Signs and Labels: Room Labeling: EHS(environment-health and safety) labels radioisotope use rooms with Caution Radioactive Material signs.  Container & Equipment Labeling: Label any container of radioactive material or piece of equipment in which radioactive material is stored and any contaminated area or item, regardless of the level of radioactivity, with Radioactive tape. Labeling contaminated items and containers of radioactive material is an important tool for contamination control.

5-Good Laboratory Practices Familiarity with Radioisotope Properties: Be familiar with the properties of the radioisotope you plan to use and with any precautions and concerns specific to that radioisotope and material. For instance, there are special precautions for working with 35S-methionine because of its volatility. Preoperational Survey: Are you sure your work area is free of contamination when you start? You are encouraged to survey your work area carefully before you start in case someone else left the work area contaminated or in case you missed contamination the last time you worked. Changing Gloves: Change your gloves frequently. Your radioactive solutions, especially when aliquoting from the stock vial, are likely to be highly concentrated. It is very easy to contaminate your gloves and to spread contamination. Mouth Pipetting: Never pipette radioactive materials by mouth.

Waste: Cover radioactive waste cans at all times and store waste cans away from areas in which people spend substantial amounts of time. Provide shielding for waste cans. Postoperational Surveys: Survey yourself and your clothing when radioisotope work is finished and before leaving the lab. Never work alone in a radioactive lab, especially not outside normal working hours.  Always make sure to have someone nearby in case of emergency

6-Fume Hoods and Biosafety Cabinets Work with certain radioactive materials, such as volatile I-125, must be performed in a designated radioactive materials (RAM) fume hood. Do not use biological safety cabinets (or laminar flow hoods) for work with volatile radioactive materials, since the air from the cabinet may be exhausted back to the room.

Notes: Regularly check the radiation level of your working area and all objects used, or at least at the end of each working day. The workers must be checked regularly with dosimeters, and appropriate measures should be taken in cases of overdose

references 1-EHS:environment health and safety. 2-US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Par 20—standards for protection against radiation.http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc- coll.ections/cfr/part020/full-text.html. (Accessed September 24, 2010)

Thank you Aseel abuhelweh