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Radioactive compounds are used in some medical procedures to diagnose and treat diseases. PET scans, for example, use a radioactive dye to help doctors see tissues and organs, and some cancer treatments use radioactive compounds to target tumor cells.
The case report tells of a 69-year-old man with a pancreatic tumor who was treated with a nuclear medicine at a hospital in Arizona in 2017. He died a few days later and was cremated five days after treatment.
Upon hearing of the patient's death, a radiation safety officer from the hospital informed the crematorium and, one month after the treatment, examined the equipment for assistance. a Geiger counter. An employee urine sample was also analyzed.
Incineration "volatilizes" radiopharmaceuticals into a dead body, and radioactive contamination can be "inhaled by workers (or released into the neighboring community) and result in greater exposure than that of a living patient." ", wrote Yu and his co-authors.
The Geiger counter detected a range of radioactivity (mainly the isotope contained in the drug administered to the patient) on the equipment of the crematorium: the oven, the vacuum filter and the bone grinder.
A different isotope has been detected in the employee's urine. Since he had never had a medical intervention involving radiopharmaceuticals, the researchers believe that he inhaled the radioactive contaminant during the incineration of other bodies.
With the current rate of cremation in the United States reaching 50%, Yu and his co-authors believe that more studies are needed to understand the extent of radioactive contamination of crematoria and the potential health risks of crematoriums. workers.
Dr. Daniel Appelbaum, head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Imaging at the Medical Center of the University of Chicago, said that radiation therapy has been around for decades but that it is "very recently have become much more common ".
Since "this will only become a common problem in the future", we need to think about ways to identify and notify crematoria of the potential risk and to assess the degree of radioactive contamination post possible death, he said.
"We live in a world of radioactivity, we can not avoid everything," he said. "You go on a plane, you climb a mountain, you even watch television, you received radiation." Nevertheless, he said, "if there are reasonable and fairly simple measures we can do to minimize radioactivity, why not do it?"
Cremation regulations for patients who have received nuclear medicine vary from state to state and there is no federal regulation in the United States. Yu and his co-authors are asking for "future safety protocols" including "post mortem management, such as evaluating the radioactivity of patients who died before cremation and the normalization of crematorium notification".
Appelbaum believes that new guidelines will emerge, but in the meantime, crematoriums can do this and protect their workers. "Start with a rigorous application of the mask, gloves and manipulation techniques," he said.
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