National Audit for Traceable ¹³¹I Activity Measurements with Radionuclide Calibrators Among Nuclear Medicine Centers in India

In nuclear medicine practices, unsealed radio-pharmaceuticals are administered to the patients for diagnosis (imaging) and/or treatment of various types of cancer, neurological disorders, cardiac disease, etc. Therefore, to ensure the safety and efficacy of the diagnosis and therapy procedures, it is absolutely essential that the activity of administered radiopharmaceuticals measured using radionuclide calibrators are accurate and reproducible. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)-India's Designated Institute (DI) for ionizing radiation metrology-has been conducting national quality audit programmes among nuclear medicine centers for providing traceability of measurements as well as check the accuracy and consistency of radionuclide calibrators since 1981. In this paper, we present results of the audit carried out during 2020-2021 for traceable I-131 activity measurements with radionuclide calibrators in which 200 nuclear medicine centers participated. We also present a comparison of results of all the audits conducted during past four decades. The results of latest audit are very encouraging with 93% of the radionuclide calibrators compliant within the acceptable window of +/- 10%. During the initial years of the audit, only a few nuclear medicine centers participated in the audit program and also the fraction of compliant radionuclide calibrators was significantly lower. However, once the audit program was made mandatory by the regulator body, not only did the number of participants increased but also the fraction of compliant radionuclide calibrators increased drastically. This implies that India's nuclear medicine centres have ensured safe and efficient dose delivery to the patient for diagnosis and/or therapy of various diseases.