• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.105-109
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• 2020

Intensity-modulated radiotherapy(IMRT) has disadvantages such as increasing the low doses of irradiation to normal tissues and accumulated dose for the whole volume by leakage and transmission of the Multi Leaf Collimator (MLC). The accumulated dose and low dose may increase the occurrence of secondary malignant neoplasms. For this reasons, the jaw tracking function of the TrueBeam (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) was developed to reduce the leakage and transmission dose of the MLC with existing linear accelerators. But quantitative analysis of the dose reduction has not been verified. Therefore, in the present study, we intended to verify the clinical possibility of utilizing the jaw tracking function in brain tumor with comparison of treatment plans. To accomplish this, 3 types of original treatment plans were made using Eclipse11 (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA): 1) beyond 2 cm distance from the Organs At Risk (OARs); 2) within 2 cm distance from the OARs; and 3) intersecting with the OARs. Jaw tracking treatment plans were also made with copies of the original treatment planning using Smart LMC Version 11.0.31 (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA). A comparison between the 2 types of treatment planning methods was performed using the difference of the mean dose and maximum dose to the OARs in cumulative Dose Volume Histogram (DVH). In the DVH comparison, the maximum difference of 0.5 % was observed between the planning methods in the case of over 2 cm distance, and the maximum of 0.6 % was obtained for within the 2 cm distance. For the case intersecting with the OAR, the maximum difference of 2 % was achieved. According to these results, it could be realized that the differences of mean dose and maximum dose to the OARs was larger when the OARs and PTV were closer. Therefore, treatment plans with the jaw tracking function consistently affected the dose reduction and the clinical possibility could be verified.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.32-36
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• 2016

Purpose In nuclear medicine examination, $^{131}I$ is widely used in nuclear medicine examination such as diagnosis, treatment, and others of thyroid cancer and other diseases. $^{131}I$ conducts examination and treatment through emission of ${\gamma}$ ray and ${\beta}^-$ ray. Since $^{131}I$ (364 keV) contains more energy compared to $^{99m}Tc$ (140 keV) although it displays high integrated rate and enables quick discharge through kidney, the objective of this study lies in comparing the difference in exposure dose of $^{131}I$ before and after wearing apron when handling $^{131}I$ with focus on 3 elements of external exposure protection that are distance, time, and shield in order to reduce the exposure to technicians in comparison with $^{99m}Tc$ during the handling and administration process. When wearing apron (in general, Pb 0.5 mm), $^{99m}Tc$ presents shield of over 90% but shielding effect of $^{131}I$ is relatively low as it is of high energy and there may be even more exposure due to influence of scattered ray (secondary) and bremsstrahlung in case of high dose. However, there is no special report or guideline for low dose (74 MBq) high energy thus quantitative analysis on exposure dose of technicians will be conducted based on apron wearing during the handling of $^{131}I$. Materials and Methods With patients who visited Department of Nuclear Medicine of our hospital for low dose $^{131}I$ administration for thyroid cancer and diagnosis for 7 months from Jun 2014 to Dec 2014 as its subject, total 6 pieces of TLD was attached to interior and exterior of apron placed on thyroid, chest, and testicle from preparation to administration. Then, radiation exposure dose from $^{131}I$ examination to administration was measured. Total procedure time was set as within 5 min per person including 3 min of explanation, 1 min of distribution, and 1 min of administration. In regards to TLD location selection, chest at which exposure dose is generally measured and thyroid and testicle with high sensitivity were selected. For preparation, 74 MBq of $^{131}I$ shall be distributed with the use of $2m{\ell}$ syringe and then it shall be distributed after making it into dose of $2m{\ell}$ though dilution with normal saline. When distributing $^{131}I$ and administering it to the patient, $100m{\ell}$ of water shall be put into a cup, distributed $^{131}I$ shall be diluted, and then oral administration to patients shall be conducted with the distance of 1m from the patient. The process of withdrawing $2m{\ell}$ syringe and cup used for oral administration was conducted while wearing apron and TLD. Apron and TLD were stored at storage room without influence of radiation exposure and the exposure dose was measured with request to Seoul Radiology Services. Results With the result of monthly accumulated exposure dose of TLD worn inside and outside of apron placed on thyroid, chest, and testicle during low dose $^{131}I$ examination during the research period divided by number of people, statistics processing was conducted with Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test using SPSS Version. 12.0K. As a result, it was revealed that there was no significant difference since all of thyroid (p = 0.345), chest (p = 0.686), and testicle (p = 0.715) were presented to be p > 0.05. Also, when converting the change in total exposure dose during research period into percentage, it was revealed to be -23.5%, -8.3%, and 19.0% for thyroid, chest, and testicle respectively. Conclusion As a result of conducting Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, it was revealed that there is no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05). Also, in case of calculating shielding rate with accumulate exposure dose during 7 months, it was revealed that there is irregular change in exposure dose for inside and outside of apron. Although the degree of change seems to be high when it is expressed in percentage, it cannot be considered a big change since the unit of accumulated exposure dose is in decimal points. Therefore, regardless of wearing apron during high energy low dose $^{131}I$ administration, placing certain distance and terminating the administration as soon as possible would be of great assistance in reducing the exposure dose. Although this study restricted $^{131}I$ administration time to be within 5 min per person and distance for oral administration to be 1m, there was a shortcoming to acquire accurate result as there was insufficient number of N for statistics and it could be processed only through non-parametric method. Also, exposure dose per person during lose dose $^{131}I$ administration was measured with accumulated exposure dose using TLD rather than through direct-reading exposure dose thus more accurate result could be acquired when measurement is conducted using electronic dosimeter and pocket dosimeter.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2011

Recently a variety of high technologies for radiation therapy (IMRT, SRS,. 3D-RT, etc.) has been developed. For the cervical and rectal cancer, 3field or 4field radiotherapy have been applied to the patients. In the case of two-dimensional treatment, one of the most typical side-effects is skin burn due to the radiation irradiation. In general the skin dose is evaluated by only a single measurement during the whole treatment period. In this study, however, skin dose was measured in each radiation treatment and the total skin dose was accumulated in a glass dosimeter through all the cases. After simulating the skin dose from treatment planning system, the results were compared with the actual skin doses. The results showed a good agreement between two data sets. Even though there are certain amount of errors caused by the patient movement along the treatment, the difference between actual dose and simulated dose was within the accepted range of error.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.495-502
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• 2016

In this study, we analyzed the effects of radiation exposure, as compared to the hematological parameters change of medical radiation workers and the public. The mean value of all hematological parameters were in the normal range. Eosin mean value of the radiation workers($2.52{\pm}1.79%$) showed that a significantly lower than the control group($2.92{\pm}1.39%$). In the comparison of the results depending on the occupation period, it showed high value that the mean of the radiation workers group WBC, platelet, Lymph, Mono, Baso. Over 20 years of radiation workers WBC, Mono showed low values and less than 10 years of radiation workers mean value of Baso showed low values, there was no statistical significance. In the comparison of the results depending on the 4 years cumulative radiation dose, Over 5.0 mSv of Radiation works RBC($4.61{\pm}0.53$ vs $4.91{\pm}0.38$), Hct($41.51{\pm}4.07$ vs $43.97{\pm}3.40$), Eosin($1.74{\pm}1.14$ vs $2.92{\pm}1.39$) showed low value, it was statistical significance. 0.5~1.0 mSv radiation exposure workers Hb ($13.93{\pm}1.75$) showed a significantly lower value than that of the control group ($14.90{\pm}1.29$).

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.149-154
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• 2010

Exposed doses to the patient's caregiver and their house due to the 131I from patients discharged from the hospital were measured using OSL dosimeters. Usually, 3.37-5.55 GBq (100-150 mCi) of $^{131}I$ administrated patients are discharged from the hospital after 3 or 4 days of hospitalization in Korea. In addition, after 5 to 8 days, the accumulated doses of the patient's caregiver and house after hospitalization of the patient were measured using OSL dosimeters. The results of the measured average accumulated doses were 0.1 mSv, which is 10% of 1 mSv, the public dose limit in the Korean Atomic Energy Law. And it's standard deviation was 0.087 mSv. Based on the results of this study, we anticipate that we could assure the compliance of the regulation requirement 5 mSv of MEST (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology) Notice No. 2008-45 for the patient's caregiver or family, even if we reduce the 3-4 days of hospitalization to 1-2 days or less.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.2287-2292
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• 2012

In this study, $Co^{60}$ gamma-ray induced loss on Ge-doped single mode (SM) fiber has been measured. Gamma-ray is irradiated for 4 hours at the dose rate of 0.5 kGy/hr, 2 kGy/hr, 8 kGy/hr. Consequently, gamma-ray induced loss based on radiation effects in Ge-doped SM fiber occur significantly. Furthermore, dose rate effect was observed, that dose rate using the same total dose increased higher, then optical fiber loss increased more. Also annealing effect was observed, that the loss after irradiation, increased higher, then the recovery rate of loss was increased. This results are foreseen to be base data in the future radiation-hardened optical fiber study.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.495-498
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• 2018

In this paper, we propose an DAP system for dose evaluation of medical and industrial X-ray generator. Based on the DAP measurement technique using the Ion-Chamber, the proposed system can clearly measure the exposure radiation dose generated by the diagnostic X-ray apparatus. The hardware part of the DAP measures the amount of charge in the air that is captured by an X-ray. The high-speed processing algorithm part for cumulative radiation dose measurement through microcurrent measures the amount of charge captured by X-ray at a low implementation cost (power) with no input loss. The wired/wireless transmission/reception protocol part synchronized with the operation of the X-ray generator improves communication speed. The PC-based control program part for interlocking and aging measures the amount of X-ray generated in real time and enables measurement graphs and numerical value monitoring through PC GUI. As a result of evaluating the performance of the proposed system in an accredited testing laboratory, the measured values using DAP increased linearly in each energy band (30, 60, 100, 150 kV). In addition, since the standard deviation of the measured value at the point of 4 division was ${\pm}1.25%$, it was confirmed that the DAP showed uniform measurements regardless of location. It was confirmed that the normal operation was not less than ${\pm}4.2%$ of the international standard.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.141-150
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• 2004

Dose rate characteristics of cosmic radiation field at flight altitudes were analyzed and the route doses to the personnels on board due to cosmic-ray were calculated for Korean-based commercial international airline routes using CARI-6. Annual individual doses to aircrew and the collective effective dose of passengers were estimated by applying the calculated route doses to the flight schedules of aircrew and the air travel statistics of Korea. The result shows that the annual doses to aircrew, around 2.62 mSv, exceed the annual dose limit of public and are comparable to doses of the group of workers occupationally exposed. Therefore it is necessary to consider the frequent flyers as well as the aircrew as the occupational exposure group. The annual collective dose to 11 million Korean passengers in 2001 appeared to be 136 man-Sv. The results should be modified when the dose rates of cosmic radiation at high altitude are revised by taking into account the changes in the radiation weighting factors for protons and neutrons as given in ICRP 92.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.177-182
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• 2014

Purpose : The goal of this study was to compare and analysis the dose distribution and treatment time between Tomotherapy planning with fixed jaw(FJ) and dynamic jaw(DJ). Materials and Methods : Seven patients were selected in the study including five common clinical cases(brain, head and neck(HN), lung, prostate, spine). 1) Helical Tomotherapy plans with FJ and DJ were generated with the same planning parameters such as Modulation factor, Pitch and Field width. 2) Tomo_edge plans with a larger field width were generated to compare to conventional HT delivery with fixed jaw. Dosimetric evaluation indices for target coverage are Dmin, Conformity index(CI) and for whole body including target are $V_{10%}$, $V_{25%}$, $V_{50%}$, $V_{75%}$ using Dose-volume histogram(DVH). Also, Treatment time and Cumulative MU were used for clinical review on Tomo_edge. Results : In case of using the same field width of Tomotherapy planning with FJ and DJ, the averaged variations were $V_{10%}$: -11.91%, $V_{25%}$: -7.6%, $V_{50%}$ :-4.75%, $V_{75%}$: -1.04%. Tomo_edge with a larger field width provides the averaged variations for target coverage: Dmin: -0.72%, CI: -1.25% and also shows the tendency of a sharp $V_{x%}$ decline in low dose area. The clinical improvements in the larger field width with DJ were observed in the treatment time, ranging from -51.21% to -15.11, and the Cumulative MU decrease, ranging from -57.74% to -15.31%. Conclusion : Target coverage achieved by FJ and DJ with the same field width has little differences. But integral doses on whole body efficiently decreased. Compared to the conventional HT delivery, Tomo_edge with a larger field width presents a little worse target coverage. However, it provides faster treatment delivery and improved cranial-caudal target dose conformity. Therefore, Tomo_edge mode is efficient in improving the treatment time and integral dose while maintaining comparable plan quality in clinic.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.157-170
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• 2008

Purpose: This prospective study was conducted to reveal the haematological index change by low level radiation exposure in radiological environment our hospital workers. Materials and Method: We gathered the cumulative dose by Thermoluminenscent Dosimeters (TLD) over 9-yr period and examined hematological index counts change (RBC, Hb, Platelet, WBC, Monocyte, Lymphocyte, Neutrophilic, Basophilic, Eosinophilic) both occupational workers and controls. Of a total 370 occupational workers and 335 controls were compared. Results: This analysis has led to the following general observations 1) The average cumulative dose in male and female were $9.65{\pm}15.2\;mSv$, $4.82{\pm}5.55\;mSv$ respectively. 2) In both male and female, there were very low relationship between occupation period and cumulative dose (r< ${\pm}0.25$). 3) Occupation period was more increased, in male, WBC counts decreased and increased workers, RBC counts decreased workers were more than controls group (p<0.05). In female, WBC counts decreased and increased workers and W-eosino counts decreased workers were more than controls group (p<0.01). 4) Cumulative dose was more increased, in male, W-Lympho counts decreased workers and Platelet counts deceased workers were more than controls group (p<0.05). In female, W-lympho counts decreased workers and RBC counts decreased workers were more than controls group (p<0.05). Conclusions: We can find some kinds of blood index abnormal distribution in occupational radiation workers by comparing with controls. Occupational workers cannot avoid radiation exposure, in spite of the control it. Actually low level radiation adverse effect occurred not dose but probability. So workers must always try to reduce exposure by ourselves, furthermore as long as possible the government should provide rapidly that national system on radiation control for worker's health.