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Radioactive Therapy: Security Issue?

Aug. 3, 2006 -- Getting radioisotope therapy? You may want to carry a card about your treatment in case you trigger radiation security alarms.

British doctors offer that advice in BMJ.

Those doctors include diabetesdiabetes and endocrinology expert Kalyan Kumar Gangopadhyay, MBBS, MD, MRCP, of City Hospital in Birmingham in England.

Radioisotopes are radioactive atoms. They're used to produce body images (nuclear scans) or to treat diseases.

Radioisotope therapy is different from external radiation therapy, which is used to treat many cancers and doesn't leave people radioactive.

Triggering Alarms

Radioisotope treatment can make patients temporarily radioactive, setting off radiation alarms in airports and other places.

That's what happened to a 46-year-old man treated by Gangopadhyay and colleagues.

The man had gotten radioiodine treatment for a thyroid problem in December 2004. Six weeks later, he flew to Orlando, Fla., on vacation.

The man set off the Orlando airport's security alarm. "He was immediately detained and strip-searched. Sniffer dogs were also used," write the doctors.

"Luckily, he was carrying his radionuclide card with him," they continue. "He was finally released after a long delay and much embarrassment."

He's not the first patient to have such problems. Cases have been reported at the Vienna, Austria, and Moscow airports, as well as at a bank vault and among tourists waiting to tour the White House.

Those security mix-ups are described by the British doctors.

They have added a line to their patients' radionuclide cards to explain that patients may trigger airport alarms for up to four months after treatment.

A journal editorial shares the sentiment that patients should carry a card or certificate about radioisotope treatment when traveling.

Alarms may be set at different thresholds, so patients may breeze through some checkpoints and trigger alarms elsewhere, note editorialist Daniel Cuthbertson, BSc, PhD, MRCP, and colleagues.

Cuthbertson is a clinical lecturer in diabetes and endocrinology at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee, Scotland.