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An Opener for Radioisotope Bottles of the British Pattern

The Radiotherapy Department, Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

Solutions of radioisotopes are supplied by the Radiochemical Centre in glass bottles sealed by a pressed metal cap and rubber bung. The necessary secure fastening of these caps often makes removal of the radioactive solution a difficult process.

There are two approaches to the removal of the solution from these bottles. Either the cap and bung can be extracted or a syringe used. The former technique is usually desirable but difficult: the latter complicated but safe. The "beer bottle" type opener, though rapid, can be hazardous, and in our experience with the re-entrant type of stopper opening inevitably "sprays" some of the contents and on occasions the bottle neck itself has been removed. The method is therefore to be avoided without extra precautions.

The syringe, or alternatively a double needle and positive pressure device, results in two or three contaminated parts and these must be cleaned fairly quickly.

If the bottle seal can be removed easily then this is most often the method of choice and enables simple subsequent techniques to be employed. The device illustrated in Fig. 1A and 1B is designed to remove the sealed cap and rubber bung with the minimum of risk and in a short time. The operation takes about one and a half minutes.

For re-entrant bungs extraction is a two-stage process: first the metal cap is cut away, then discarded and the bung extracted vertically.