Background

Pediatric nuclear medicine studies provides information regarding the physiological and molecular processes hence may play a significant role in diagnosis of child ailments. However, quantification of appropriate pediatric activities may present challenges.

Aims

To investigated the types of pediatric studies and administered pediatric radiopharmaceuticals activities (ARAs) at tertiary hospital (TH) with the view of comparing ARAs with corresponding values calculated using the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Dosage Card (version 5.7.2016).

 Methods

 Archived pediatric patients’ data (weight, age, type of nuclear medicine study and corresponding ARAs), were documented for all studies undertaken from 2012-2015. For each nuclear medicine study conducted, corresponding ARAs were calculated using the EANM Dosage card (version 5.7.2016). ARAs per kilogram were calculated for each patient using both dosing guidelines and then compared.

Results

The most commonly conducted pediatric nuclear medicine studies included bone scans, thyroid scans, renal scans, HIDA scans, MIBG scans and gastroesophageal reflux scans. The mean ARAs per kilogram were; bone scans (57.7 vs 9.6 MBq/kg), thyroid scans (7.0 vs 1.5 MBq/kg), renal scans (13.9 vs 3.2 MBq/kg), ^99mT-HIDA scans (13.7 vs 5.8 MBq/kg), MIBG scans (15.5 vs 9.8 MBq/kg), gastroesophageal reflux scans (2.1 vs 1.1 MBq/kg), following the TH guidelines and the EANM Dosage card respectively. The EANM Dosage card guaranteed low variability of ARAs compared to the TH guidelines.

Conclusion

The EANM guidelines guarantees that children are administered with low radiopharmaceutical activities. Administering low activities to children is important because the risk of cancer induction becomes minimal.