Quality of Indoor environment of hospital diagnostic imaging services

low doses radiation exposure

Abstract

Estimates of radiation risks at low doses and low dose rates are important, for example for populations living in contaminated areas after nuclear accidents or in high natural background radiation areas, or for radiation protection of individuals occupationally exposed to ionizing radiation This work aimed to study the indoor environment regarding on Radiological Safety and on microbiological contamination due airborne fungi, by monitoring the potential mutagenic effects caused by possible low doses of radiation exposure. As a bioindicator of mutagenicity it was chosen the micronuclei production by Tradescantia pallida, one of the most sensitive organisms for the detection of mutagens in the air; the fungi contamination research was performed by spontaneous deposition in plate. We monitored five Hospitals image services in the Sorocaba city, state of São Paulo, Brazil, two of them are public services and the other three, are private ones. The results pointed mutagenic activity in the images rooms in the two public hospitals, but not in the three private image services.  It was found spores, mainly of the genres Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium and Fusarium, in all rooms, indicating risk of opportunistic infections, especially related to the presence of Penicilium sp and Fusarium sp genres.  The T. pallida bioassay represents a adjuvant tool in monitoring these indoor environments and showed that there is a mutagenic activity, despite being controlled environments. Therefore, even in these controlled environments the risks related to exposure to radiation are still imponderable.

Keyword: Ionizing radiation. Tradescantia pallida. Mutagenesis. Anemophilus fungi.