Thyroid and gonads are radiosensitive organs which requires radiation shield to reduce the dose received. However,
radiation shielding is not widely used in radionuclide imaging because it is heavy, uncomfortable and can cause pain
in the spine. Therefore, a research was carried out to determine the ability of thyroid and gonad radiation shield
which is thinner and lighter in reducing radiation dose. A study was conducted in Hospital Putrajaya to determine
the radiation dose received by the thyroid and gonads during a complete Positron Emission Tomography-Computed
Tomography (PET-CT) procedure with and without radiation shield. A total of six male staffs have been chosen as subject
and data from 33 complete PET-CT procedures have been collected. For every PET-CT procedure, the subject’s thyroid
and gonad were shielded using 0.5-mm thick radiation shielded, model Mavig 615 (USA) and Shielding International
(USA) respectively. Thermal luminescent dosimeter (TLD) chips were used as radiation dose detector. The average 18FFDG radioactivity administered to the patient was 387 MBq and the average scan time is 9.224 ± 1.797 minutes. The
results showed that the mean equivalent dose received by the thyroid with and without shielding were 0.080 ± 0.033
mSv and 0.078 ± 0.039 mSv respectively. The mean equivalent dose received by gonad with and without shielding
were 0.059 ± 0.040 mSv and 0.061 ± 0.030 mSv respectively. Radiation shield with 0.5 mm thickness is unable to
reduce radiation dose received by the thyroid (p = 0.76) and gonads (p = 0.79) because it is too thin to resist the
high-energy radiation during PET-CT procedures. Thyroid receive higher radiation dose of 0.016 m Sv compared to
the gonads (p < 0.05) because the thyroid’s position is more exposed to radiation sources which are 18F-FDG during
radiopharmaceutical preparation and patients after administered with 18F-FDG during PET-CT procedure.
Keywords: equivalent dose, radiation shield, TLD