title: Nuclear medicine examinations of children in Russia.
abstract: The number and specification of radionuclide examinations, administrated activity and effective doses were collected during 2011-13 for 4944 paediatric patients from 10 nuclear medicine (NM) departments of some Russian regions. The kidney examinations account for about 70 % of paediatric NM examinations in general hospitals. Diagnostics of all other organs contribute from 2 to 8 % each in the total number of paediatric examinations. Administrated activities of radiopharmaceuticals are approximately proportional to the child's age, and variations between different hospitals usually are within the factor of 3-4 and for some types of examination up to 10. The range of the effective dose due to paediatric NM examinations is roughly estimated as 2-6 mSv per examination, approximately the same as in adults. Some examinations (heart, thyroid, whole body) result in doses of younger children that are 2-3 times higher than the doses of adults. Effective doses in paediatric positron emission tomography (PET) diagnostics are in the range of 4-10 mSv per examination and are higher compared with the dose of adult patients. The application of combined radiodiagnostic technologies (single photon emission computer tomography with roentghen computer tomography [SPECT/CT] or PET with roetghen computer tomography [PET/CT]) increases the effective dose of patients by the factor of 1.5-2 for the skeleton or whole body examinations.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene, St. Petersburg, Russia ir_zv@bk.ru.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Zvonova
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene, St. Petersburg, Russia.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chipiga
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene, St. Petersburg, Russia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Balonov
authors.affiliation: Russian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ermolina
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007668:Kidney / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009683:Nuclear Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011835:Radiation Protection; D011874:Radiometry; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012426:Russia; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods; D051598:Whole Body Imaging
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals