Imparted dose in blood components with a 137Cs irradiator.

Irradiation of blood components is currently one of the accepted methods for preventing Transfusion-Associated Graft-Versus-Host Disease (TA-GVHD) in immunosuppressed patients. The aim of this work was to evaluate the uniformity of the radiation field of a ¹³⁷Cs irradiator (BIOBEAM GM 2000), through the dose distribution and verify that the irradiator imparts a dose greater than or equal to 25 Gy in the blood components, as part of the quality control of the equipment according to the Mexican norm NOM-253-SSA1-2012. In this study, dosimetry was performed by radiochromic EBT-XD film. It was found that much of the irradiation field does not receive the nominal dose (25 Gy) from the equipment and shows a uniformity (CV<5%) in the central region and tends to decrease in the peripheral areas due to the proximity of the source and the time of irradiation. The dosimetry in the blood components shows an average overdose of 47.2% with respect to the nominal dose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]