Patient-specific Extravasation Dosimetry Using Uptake Probe Measurements

Extravasation is a common problem in radiopharmaceutical administration and can result in significant radiation dose to underlying tissue and skin. The resulting radiation effects are rarely studied and should be more fully evaluated to guide patient care and meet regulatory obligations. The purpose of this work was to show that a dedicated radiopharmaceutical injection monitoring system can help clinicians characterize extravasations for calculating tissue and skin doses. We employed a commercially available radiopharmaceutical injection monitoring system to identify suspected extravasation of (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose and (99m)Tc-methylene diphosphonate in 26 patients and to characterize their rates of biological clearance. We calculated the self-dose to infiltrated tissue using Monte Carlo simulation and standard MIRD dosimetry methods, and we used VARSKIN software to calculate the shallow dose equivalent to the epithelial basal-cell layer of overlying skin. For 26 patients, injection-site count rate data were used to characterize extravasation clearance. For each, the absorbed dose was calculated using representative tissue geometries. Resulting tissue-absorbed doses ranged from 0.6 to 11.2 Gy, and the shallow dose equivalent to a 10 cm(2) area of adjacent skin in these patients ranged from about 0.1 to 5.4 Sv. Extravasated injections of radiopharmaceuticals can result in unintentional doses that exceed well-established radiation protection and regulatory limits; they should be identified and characterized. An external injection monitoring system may help to promptly identify and characterize extravasations and improve dosimetry calculations. Patient-specific characterization can help clinicians determine extravasation severity and whether the patient should be followed for adverse tissue reactions that may present later in time.