Background/aim: A mobile system allowing hospital medical personnel to prepare for the administration of radiation mitigators prior to receiving casualties is desirable.
Materials and methods: We evaluated a portable spectroscopic personal radiation detector for use as an ambulance-based unit for early detection and identification of gamma radiation. We tested the sensitivity, time-to-identification, and radionuclide identification accuracy rates, change in detector response to vehicle operation, interference from cardiac equipment, and internal versus external radiation source location.
Results: We detected radiation sources in each of 119 trials using a humanoid phantom in a moving ambulance with a primary radionuclide identification accuracy of 96%. Typical identification time was around two minutes (149±95 s).
Conclusion: Our observations suggest this mobile system is a potential pre-hospital arrival tool allowing for rapid preparation of radiation mitigators.
Keywords: Radiation detectors; ambulance; mobile alert system; radiation mitigation.
Copyright © 2015 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.