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Dear colleagues, I would like to share the following issue with you, as it would be useful for me to know how the other countries manage it.
In recent years, the use of 177Lu for therapeutic purposes has grown exponentially and will probably continue to grow, thanks to its effectiveness for the treatment of very common tumor pathologies.
177Lu can be produced by two mechanisms: neutron irradiation of 176Yb or otherwise neutron irradiation of 176Lu. This latter process leads to the presence of 177mLu, which has a half-life of 160,4 days, while the 177Lu decays into 177Hf (stable) in 6,64 days.
Solid waste materials produced from patient administration activities are usually cleared after an adequate storage time and a screening radiometric measurement. In particular, waste contaminated by 177Lu is generally stored in a temporary storage facility for a few months so that the activity concentration decays to a value lower than the clearance level (1 Bq/g for the Italian legislation). However, after this time, the activity concentration of 177mLu in the waste could be such as to cause a radiological impact on the individual representative of the population (effective dose > 10µSv/year).
Considering the described issue, we would like to know how your Countries manage the hospital waste contaminated by 177Lu.