Development and fabrication of supports for extremities detectors

The purpose of this work was developing and manufacturing supports for thermoluminescent detectors, aiming at using in interventionist radiology and nuclear medicine. The accomplishment of the extremities dosimetry is necessary for the attainment of the Radiological Protection Quantity, Equivalent Dose for Extremities, according to the national regulation on radiological protection; the Comissao Nacional de Energia Nuclear - CNEN in charge of the nuclear medicine through the CNEN-NN-3.01 standard and Agencia Nacional de Vigilancia Sanitaria - ANVISA responsible for the X ray diagnostic equipment through Portaria 453/98 standard of the Health department. The supports of the detectors must have adjusted characteristics for its easier use, sterilization possibility, physical format compatible with the ring and thermoluminescent reader, low cost and adequacy to the recommendations of the evaluation of the operational quantity Personal Dose Equivalent for Extremities, Hp(0,07). The detector used in this support was a LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100), manufactured by Harshaw-Bicron. This detector of LiF:Mg,Ti is encapsulated between two layers of PTFE-Teflon, generating the thermoluminescent detector support. The PTFE-Teflon polymer adequacy to use was evidenced as support of the detector, therefore it supports the high temperature of reading (300 deg C) without changing its physical form and having low attenuation of the luminescence emitted by the TLD-100, for luminescence emitted between 350 and 600 nm of the wave length range. The obtained results demonstrated that the support manufacture system for the thermoluminescent detector is efficient for its use in the extremities dosimetry. (author)