Section 6: Purchase of Radioactive Materials and Devices

All radioactive material must first be approved by the laboratory’s permit holder or designee and then approved by the DMPRS as described in this section.

All radioactive material purchase requests must be submitted online to the DMPRS. Accounting information included in the submission must be accurate and current. The DMPRS staff member will review the order and ensure the permit holder is active, the isotope may be possessed by the permit holder, and the amount requested is within their allowed possession limit. The DMPRS staff member places all orders of radioactive material directly with the vendor.

When a radioactive material package is shipped to BU/BMC, the DMPRS or authorized BMC receiving department (such as Nuclear Medicine) will receive, open, verify, inventory, and process the received radioactive materials shipment. After processing, a member of the DMPRS will deliver the package to the laboratory.

Radioactive materials ordered for clinical purposes may be delivered by a carrier directly to the license specified location in which they will be stored and used. The receiving department, (such as Nuclear Medicine) is responsible for receiving and opening the package according to established procedures. The receiving department is also responsible for performing the necessary surveys, documenting the results of the surveys, and providing the initial response if a package is found to possess contamination; departments receiving a package that exceeds 22 dpm/cm2 for a beta gamma emitter, or 2.2 dpm/cm2 for an alpha emitter, or whose transport index exceeds 10 millirem per hour at a distance of one meter must be placed in a safe isolated location, and the DMPRS must be contacted immediately.

The DMPRS will check all radioactive material packages it receives for contamination and verify that external dose rates agree with the values stated by the shipper. It is therefore not required for a laboratory to perform a radiation survey on a package received from the DMPRS but it is advisable to verify contamination levels or radiation field levels under the following conditions:

• The package is damaged, or its integrity compromised after receipt from the DMPRS; and/or
• The radioactive material container is visibly damaged.

All packages containing non-clinical formulations of radioactive material (liquid, solid, gaseous) shall be entered onto a Radioisotope Use Log on paper or in BioRAFT. This form (available on the Radiation Safety website at https://www.bu.edu/ehs/ehs-topics/radiation-safety/radiation-safety-operational-forms/) may be used as documentation for radioactive material inventory. Users shall document each time that radioactive material is removed and dispensed from the isotope stock container.