Effective and equivalent dose minimization for personnel in PET procedures: how far are we from the goal?

Radiation dose limitation in patients undergoing nuclear medicine procedures is accomplished through adherence to the principles of justification and optimization, while radiation doses to operators are controlled mainly by reducing exposure times, using shielding, and increasing the distance from the source. In both cases, however, a key role in dose management can also be played by innovative technologies, making this an important issue not only for nuclear medicine specialists, medical physicists, and technologists, but also for biomedical engineers and for industry.