• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.154-159
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• 2011

To evaluate the radiation exposure of workers participating in task where high radiation exposure is expected, two-dosimeter is typically provided radiation workers, one on the chest and the other on the back, at Korean nuclear power plants (NPPs). In a previous study, the NCRP (55:50) algorithm was selected as the optimal two-dosimeter algorithm (TDA) with various field tests and this TDA has been applied to all Korean NPPs since 2006. In 2007, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) published the new ICRP recommendation, ICRP 103, which provides the revised weighting factors for both radiation and tissues and the new reference phantom. In this study, the applicability of current NCRP (55:50) algorithm at Korean NPPs for ICRP 103 was analyzed. As a result, it was found that the NCRP (55:50) algorithm is still effective to estimate the effective dose of workers under ICRP 103.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.111-133
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• 2022

The exciting advancement related to the "modeling of digital human" in terms of a computational phantom for radiation dose calculations has to do with the latest hype related to deep learning. The advent of deep learning or artificial intelligence (AI) technology involving convolutional neural networks has brought an unprecedented level of innovation to the field of organ segmentation. In addition, graphics processing units (GPUs) are utilized as boosters for both real-time Monte Carlo simulations and AI-based image segmentation applications. These advancements provide the feasibility of creating three-dimensional (3D) geometric details of the human anatomy from tomographic imaging and performing Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations using increasingly fast and inexpensive computers. This review first introduces the history of three types of computational human phantoms: stylized medical internal radiation dosimetry (MIRD) phantoms, voxelized tomographic phantoms, and boundary representation (BREP) deformable phantoms. Then, the development of a person-specific phantom is demonstrated by introducing AI-based organ autosegmentation technology. Next, a new development in GPU-based Monte Carlo radiation dose calculations is introduced. Examples of applying computational phantoms and a new Monte Carlo code named ARCHER (Accelerated Radiation-transport Computations in Heterogeneous EnviRonments) to problems in radiation protection, imaging, and radiotherapy are presented from research projects performed by students at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Finally, this review discusses challenges and future research opportunities. We found that, owing to the latest computer hardware and AI technology, computational human body models are moving closer to real human anatomy structures for accurate radiation dose calculations.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.172-179
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• 2022

Recently, tetrahedral phantoms have been newly adopted as international standard mesh-type reference computational phantoms (MRCPs) by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, and a program has been developed to convert them to computational tomography images and DICOM-RT structure files for application of radiotherapy. Through this program, the use of the tetrahedral standard phantom has become available in clinical practice, but utilization has been difficult due to various library dependencies requiring a lot of time and effort for installation. To overcome this limitation, in this study a newly developed TET2DICOM-GUI, a TET2DICOM program based on a graphical user interface (GUI), was programmed using only the MATLAB language so that it can be used without additional library installation and configuration. The program runs in the same order as TET2DICOM and has been optimized to run on a personal computer in a GUI environment. A tetrahedron-based male international standard human phantom, MRCP-AM, was used to evaluate TET2DICOM-GUI. Conversion into a DICOM-RT dataset applicable in clinical practice in about one hour with a personal computer as a basis was confirmed. Also, the generated DICOM-RT dataset was confirmed to be effectively implemented in the radiotherapy planning system. The program developed in this study is expected to replace actual patient data in future studies.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2002

High energy photon beams from medical linear accelerators produce large scattered radiation by various components of the treatment head, collimator and walls or objects in the treatment room including the patient. These scattered radiation do not provide therapeutic dose and are considered a hazard from the radiation safety perspective. Scattered dose of therapeutic high energy radiation beams are contributed significant unwanted dose to the patient. ICRP take the position that a dose of 500mGy may cause abortion at any stage of pregnancy and that radiation detriment to the fetus includes risk of mental retardation with a possible threshold in the dose response relationship around 100 mGy for the gestational period. The ICRP principle of as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) was recommended for protection of occupation upon the linear no-threshold dose response hypothesis for cancer induction. We suggest this ALARA principle be applied to the fetus and testicle in therapeutic treatment. Radiation dose outside a photon treatment filed is mostly due to scattered photons. This scattered dose is a function of the distance from the beam edge, treatment geometry, primary photon energy, and depth in the patient. The need for effective shielding of the fetus and testicle is reinforced when young patients ate treated with external beam radiation therapy and then shielding designed to reduce the scattered photon dose to normal organs have to considered. Irradiation was performed in phantom using high energy photon beams produced by a Varian 2100C/D medical linear accelerator (Varian Oncology Systems, Palo Alto, CA) located at the Yonsei Cancer Center. The composite phantom used was comprised of a commercially available anthropomorphic Rando phantom (Phantom Laboratory Inc., Salem, YN) and a rectangular solid polystyrene phantom of dimensions $30cm{\times}30cm{\times}20cm$. the anthropomorphic Rando phantom represents an average man made from tissue equivalent materials that is transected into transverse 36 slices of 2.5cm thickness. Photon dose was measured using a Capintec PR-06C ionization chamber with Capintec 192 electrometer (Capintec Inc., Ramsey, NJ), TLD( VICTOREEN 5000. LiF) and film dosimetry V-Omat, Kodak). In case of fetus, the dosimeter was placed at a depth of loom in this phantom at 100cm source to axis distance and located centrally 15cm from the inferior edge of the $30cm{\times}30cm^2$ x-ray beam irradiating the Rando phantom chest wall. A acryl bridge of size $40cm{\times}40cm^2$ and a clear space of about 20 cm was fabricated and placed on top of the rectangular polystyrene phantom representing the abdomen of the patient. The leaf pot for testicle shielding was made as various shape, sizes, thickness and supporting stand. The scattered photon with and without shielding were measured at the representative position of the fetus and testicle. Measurement of radiation scattered dose outside fields and critical organs, like fetus position and testicle region, from chest or pelvic irradiation by large fie]d of high energy radiation beam was performed using an ionization chamber and film dosimetry. The scattered doses outside field were measured 5 - 10% of maximum doses in fields and exponentially decrease from field margins. The scattered photon dose received the fetus and testicle from thorax field irradiation was measured about 1 mGy/Gy of photon treatment dose. Shielding construction to reduce this scattered dose was investigated using lead sheet and blocks. Lead pot shield for testicle reduced the scatter dose under 10 mGy when photon beam of 60 Gy was irradiated in abdomen region. The scattered photon dose is reduced when the lead shield was used while the no significant reduction of scattered photon dose was observed and 2-3 mm lead sheets refuted the skin dose under 80% and almost electron contamination. The results indicate that it was possible to improve shielding to reduce scattered photon for fetus and testicle when a young patients were treated with a high energy photon beam.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.263-271
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• 1996

The ANSI N13.32 recommends that a study of the angular response of a dosimeter be carried out once, although no pass/fail criterion is given for angular response. Gamma dose equivalent conversion and angular dependence factors were calculated by using MCNP code for the case of ANSI N13.32 extremity phantoms(finger and arm) at the depth of $7mg/cm^2$. Those extremity dosimeters were assumed to be irradiated from both monoenergitic photons and ISO X-ray narrow beams. These calculated gamma dose equivalent conversion and angular dependence factors were compared to B. Grosswendt's result calculated by using X-ray beams. The result showed that the dose equivalent conversion factors of this study agreed well with that of B. Grosswendt for all energies within 2% except 7% in the case of the low energies. In the case of angular dependence factors comparison, they agreed within 3%. It was shown that angular dependence factors of the finger phantom decreased as the horizontal angle of the phantom increased for the ISO X-ray beams less than 60keV. For the higher energy X-ray beams range they decreased slightly around 40 degree, but then increased from this energy to 90 degree.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2017

Background: The purpose of this study is to assign an appropriate density to virtual phantom for 2D diode array detector with different dose calculation algorithms to guarantee the accuracy of patient-specific QA. Materials and Methods: Ten VMAT plans with 6 MV photon beam and ten VMAT plans with 15 MV photon beam were selected retrospectively. The computed tomography (CT) images of MapCHECK2 with MapPHAN were acquired to design the virtual phantom images. For all plans, dose distributions were calculated for the virtual phantoms with four different materials by AAA and AXB algorithms. The four materials were polystyrene, 455 HU, Jursinic phantom, and PVC. Passing rates for several gamma criteria were calculated by comparing the measured dose distribution with calculated dose distributions of four materials. Results and Discussion: For validation of AXB modeling in clinic, the mean percentages of agreement in the cases of dose difference criteria of 1.0% and 2.0% for 6 MV were $97.2%{\pm}2.3%$, and $99.4%{\pm}1.1%$, respectively while those for 15 MV were $98.5%{\pm}0.85%$ and $99.8%{\pm}0.2%$, respectively. In the case of 2%/2 mm, all mean passing rates were more than 96.0% and 97.2% for 6 MV and 15 MV, respectively, regardless of the virtual phantoms of different materials and dose calculation algorithms. The passing rates in all criteria slightly increased for AXB as well as AAA when using 455 HU rather than polystyrene. Conclusion: The virtual phantom which had a 455 HU values showed high passing rates for all gamma criteria. To guarantee the accuracy of patent-specific VMAT QA, each institution should fine-tune the mass density or HU values of this device.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.195-201
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• 2014

The study examined the changes in the decreased facial exposure dose for radiological technologists depending on increased distance between the workers and the X-ray tube head during intraoral radiography. First, the facial phantom similar to the human tissues was manufactured. The shooting examination was configured to the maxillary molars for adults (60kVp, 10mA, 50msec) and for children (60kVp, 10mA, 20msec), and the chamber was fixed where the facial part of the radiation worker would be placed using the intraoral radiography equipment. The distances between the X-ray tube head and the phantom were set to 10cm, 15cm, 20cm, 25cm, 30cm, 35cm, and 40cm. The phantom was radiated 20 times with each examination condition and the average scattered doses were examined. The rate at the distance of 40cm decreased by about 92.6% to 7.43% based on the scattered rays radiated at the distance of 10cm under the adult conditions. The rate at the distance of 40cm decreased by about 97.6% to 2.58% based on the scattered rays radiated at the distance of 10cm under the children conditions. Protection from the radiation exposure was required during the dental radiographic examination.

• 대한방사선방어학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.66-67
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• 2011

• Journal of Korean Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.255-260
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• 1999

Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the possibility of substitution of the zonography for the full-mouth periapical radiography in aspect of radiation protection. Materials and Methods: Rando phantom and LiF TLD chips were used for dosimetry. The absorbed doses at brain, skin above the TMJ. parotid gland. bone marrow in the mandibular body. and thyroid gland during the full-mouth periapical radiography. panoramic radiography. and zonography were measured. Resul ts: From the zonography. the absorbed doses to the brain. the skin over the TMJ. and the parotid gland were relatively high. but the absorbed doses to the bone marrow in the mandibular body and. especially. the thyroid gland were very low. Conclusion: The zonography can be an alternative to the full-mouth periapical radiography in aspect of radiation protection.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

A whole body counter (WBC) is used in nuclear power plants (NPP) to identify and measure internal radioactivity of workers who is likely to ingest or inhale radionuclides. WBC has several counting geometry, i.e. the thyroid, lung, whole body and gastrointestinal tract, considered with the location where radionuclides are deposited in the body. But only whole body geometry is used to detect internal radioactivity during whole body counting at NPPs. It is overestimated internal exposure dose because this measured values are indicated as the most conservative radioactivity values among the them of others geometry. In this study, experiments to measure radioactivity depending on the counting geometry of WBC were carried out using a WBC, a phantom, and standard radiation sources in order to improve overestimated internal exposure dose. Quantitative criteria, could be selected counting geometry according to ratio of count rates of the upper and lower detectors of the WBC, are provided through statistical analysis method.