Monte Carlo simulation of the dose to nuclear medicine staff wearing protective garments

The literature contains both endorsements of, and advice against, the use of protective apparel in nuclear medicine procedures. The main issues usually centre around: Whether the shielding which can be provided by a protective garment light enough to wear (0 to 0.6 mm lead equivalent at the gamma energies commonly encountered in nuclear medicine) is enough to warrant its use; and (more recently); Whether the dose enhancement behind the protective garment from electron scatter in lead is sufficient to be of concern. In this work, the Monte Carlo code EGSnrc was used to investigate the effectiveness of lead of thicknesses of 0 to 0.6 mm, in shielding staff from photons of energies of 140 and 511 keV. Furthermore, dose escalation behind the lead was investigated. Reasonable dose reductions are obtained at 140 keV with protective garments of 0.5 mm lead equivalence. This perhaps warrants their use, in certain circumstances. At 511 keV, the reduction in dose is less than 10%, and their use is probably not justified (given the weight that has to be carried) from an ALARA point of view. It should be noted here that protective garments designed for X-ray shielding will generally not have the same lead equivalence at the gamma energies used in nuclear medicine. It should also be noted that protective garments which do not contain lead do not always attenuate as much as their stated lead equivalence claims. Dose escalation does occur, but the depth of penetration of the scattered electrons beyond the exit side of the lead shielding is such that it is highly unlikely that a significant dose would be delivered to viable tissue in wearers of protective garments.