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Title

An Analysis of Regulatory Guidelines for the Release of Patients Administered Therapeutic Doses of Radioactive Iodine

Organization

Department: Nuclear Eng'g & Health Physics

University: Idaho State University College: Science & Engineering Department: Nuclear Eng'g & Health Physics 23

Document Attachments

Resource	Length	Width	Thickness
Paper	0	0	0

Specimen Elements

City

Pocatello

Coverage

Unknown to Unknown

Creator

Alyssa K. Sullivan

Publisher

Idaho State University

Type

Thesis

Is Complete

No

Date Published

8/3/2023

Archive

digital

City: Pocatello

Degree

Master

Document Attachments

Abstracts

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a series of guidelines with differing criteria for the safe release of patients who have been administered unsealed byproduct material or implants containing byproduct material. These criteria were evaluated to see if there were significant differences in patient release times using the different criteria. Regulatory Guide 8.39 Revision 1 provides the following three release criteria under which a patient can be released from a hospital under federal regulation: 1) Release of Patients Based on the Administered Activity, 2) Release of Patients Based on the Measured Dose Rate, and 3) Release of Patients Based on Patient-Specific Dose Calculations. The results of this study showed all patients failed criteria one at the time of release. The second criteria allowed for the immediate release of four out of eighteen patients evaluated. The third criterion allowed for the immediate release of all patients. These results show that depending on which criteria was used, patient release times from the hospital can vary. If a patient is released too soon there could be a greater radiation exposure risk to the general public, however if the patient is released too late, there could be unnecessary financial stress to the patient for the additional time spent in the hospital.