title: A real-time positron monitor for the estimation of stack effluent releases from PET medical cyclotron facilities.
abstract: Large activities of short-lived positron emitting radiopharmaceuticals are routinely manufactured by modern Medical Cyclotron facilities for positron emission tomography (PET) applications. During radiochemical processing, a substantial fraction of the volatile positron emitting radiopharmaceuticals are released into the atmosphere. An inexpensive, fast response positron detector using a simple positron-annihilation chamber has been developed for real-time assessment of the stack release of positron emitting effluents at the Australian National Medical Cyclotron. The positron detector was calibrated by using a 3.0 ml (1.50 MBq) aliquot of 18FDG and interfaced to an industrial standard datalogger for the real-time acquisition of stack release data.
authors.affiliation: Safety Division B55, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), PMB 1, 2234 Menai NSW, Australia. mukherjee@ieee.org
authors.forename: Bhaskar
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mukherjee
mesh_terms: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive / Q000032:analysis*; D002138:Calibration; D017357:Cyclotrons; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed
chemical_list: D000396:Air Pollutants, Radioactive