The 7th questionnaire report of safety control in nuclear medicine

The questionnaire has been done every three years from 1986 for the ultimate purpose of safe medical examinations and this 7th one was performed for the objective period of April 1, 2001-March 31, 2004. Subjects were 1,275 nuclear medicine facilities and answers were obtained in 77.2%. Questionnaire concerned the personnel involved in nuclear medical examinations (qualifications/medical doctor, pharmacist and radiology technologist and others), instruments (an additional investigation in the present period was conducted on PET/CT with cyclotron and automatic synthesis equipment and on SPECT/CT), accidents experienced, matters possibly leading to accident, improvement in safety control, serious trouble and breakage of the instrument, requests for the instrument manufacturers and so on. Results were: qualified radiology technologists amounted to 70% and doctors, 20%; personnel number for tests in vitro tended decreased; SPECT-camera with 2 detectors increased and with 1, obviously decreased; PET and related equipments greatly increased; check rate for imaging instruments was about 80%; gamma cameras were used over their maximum time limits recommended by manufacturers; actual accidents at examination increased but were not serious; improvements of instruments for safety sensor and of operation to avoid errors were required; mind for preventing accident was improved; many requests for the manufacturers were proposed. (author)