Efficient Scheduling for Minimizing Radioactive Waste in a PET/CT Setting.

Abstract

The evolution of medical imaging technology has been marked by significant advancements in various modalities, leading to improved diagnostic capabilities, patient care, and treatment outcomes. One of these modalities is Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT), a non-invasive and powerful hybrid imaging tool that plays a crucial role in the diagnosis, staging, management and follow-up of serious diseases, such as cancer. PET-CT scans require very small amounts of radioactive isotopes, typically [18F]FDG, to be injected into a patient's vein in order to show differences between healthy and diseased tissue. At the beginning of each day a certain quantity of the radioisotope is available at the Nuclear Medicine department of a hospital which is used for the PET/CT scans of the day. Due to its short half-life time, the quantity of the radioisotope that remains unused after the PET/CT scans of the day is being disposed safely through licensed carriers or facilities. This paper presents AppointmentPlus, a web-based appointment booking system for the optimization of PET/CT scan schedules in order to minimize the generation of radioactive waste by minimizing leftover radiopharmaceutical doses.