Quality audit programme for 99mTc and 131I radioactivity measurements with radionuclide calibrators

The use of radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine for diagnosis and therapy has increased over the years with 99mTc and 131I being most widely used. Quality audit programmes for radioactivity measurements of 131I have been ongoing and the 12th audit was recently conducted among seventy nuclear medicine centres (NMC) in India. An audit for the activity measurements of 99mTc was conducted for the first time among ten NMCs in Mumbai, India. These programmes for radioactivity measurements have become very important to establish traceability of measurements to national and international standards and ensure accurate calibration of radionuclide calibrators. The results of both the audits are very encouraging. Ninety-four percent of the NMCs for 131I activity measurements were within a window of ±10% and for 99mTc one NMC was deviating more than ±10%. The methodology adopted for the audit and results are discussed in detail in this paper