• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.50-64
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• 2024

Background: The reference dose coefficients (DCs) of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) have been widely used to estimate organ doses of individuals for risk assessments. This approach has been well accepted because individual anatomy data are usually unavailable, although dosimetric uncertainty exists due to the anatomical difference between the reference phantoms and the individuals. We attempted to quantify the individual variation of organ doses for photon external exposures by calculating and comparing organ DCs for 30 individuals against the ICRP reference DCs. Materials and Methods: We acquired computed tomography images from 30 patients in which eight organs (brain, breasts, liver, lungs, skeleton, skin, stomach, and urinary bladder) were segmented using the ImageJ software to create voxel phantoms. The phantoms were implemented into the Monte Carlo N-Particle 6 (MCNP6) code and then irradiated by broad parallel photon beams (10 keV to 10 MeV) at four directions (antero-posterior, postero-anterior, left-lateral, right-lateral) to calculate organ DCs. Results and Discussion: There was significant variation in organ doses due to the difference in anatomy among the individuals, especially in the kilovoltage region (e.g., <100 keV). For example, the red bone marrow doses at 0.01 MeV varied from 3 to 7 orders of the magnitude depending on the irradiation geometry. In contrast, in the megavoltage region (1-10 MeV), the individual variation of the organ doses was found to be negligibly small (differences <10%). It was also interesting to observe that the organ doses of the ICRP reference phantoms showed good agreement with the mean values of the organ doses among the patients in many cases. Conclusion: The results of this study would be informative to improve insights in individual-specific dosimetry. It should be extended to further studies in terms of many different aspects (e.g., other particles such as neutrons, other exposures such as internal exposures, and a larger number of individuals/patients) in the future.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2009

Whole body counters (WBCs) are used to monitor radiation workers for internal contamination of radionuclides at domestic nuclear power plants (NPPs). A WBC is a scintillation detector using sodium iodide (NaI) and provides the identification of inhaled radionuclide and the measurement of its internal radioactivity in a short time. However, it is often possible to estimate external contamination as internal contamination due to radionuclides attached to the skin of radiation workers and this leads to an excessively conservative estimation of radioactive contamination. In this study, several experiments using a WBC and the Korean humanoid phantom were performed to suggest the more systematic method of discrimination between external and internal contamination. Furthermore, a WBC geometry experiment was conducted to suggest the optimal WBC geometry in consideration of deposited areas inside the body for dominant radionuclides at NPPs. The procedure of measurement and estimation of internal radioactivity for radiation workers at NPPs was improved on the basis of experimental results. Thus, it is expected to prevent from estimating internal exposure dose conservatively owing to the application of accurate whole body counting program to NPPs.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.165-171
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• 2006

In Korea, a real-time effective dose measurement system is in development. The system uses 32 high-sensitivity MOSFET dosimeters to measure radiation doses at various organ locations in an anthropomorphic physical phantom. The MOSFET dosimeters are, however, mainly made of silicon and shows some degree of energy and angular dependence especially for low energy photons. This study determines the correction factors to correct for these dependences of the MOSFET dosimeters for accurate measurement of radiation doses at organ locations in the phantom. For this, first, the dose correction factors of MOSFET dosimeters were determined for the energy spectrum in the steam generator channel of the Kori Nuclear Power Plant Unit #1 by Monte Carlo simulations. Then, the results were compared with the dose correction factors from 0.652 MeV and 1.25 MeV mono-energetic photons. The difference of the dose correction factors were found very negligible $(\leq1.5%)$, which in general shows that the dose corrections factors determined from 0.662 MeV and 1.25 MeV can be in a steam general channel head of a nuclear power plant. The measured effective dose was generally found to decrease bit $\sim7%$ when we apply the dose correction factors.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2015

Dose calculations which are a crucial requirement for radiotherapy treatment planning systems require accuracy and rapid calculations. The conventional radiotherapy treatment planning dose algorithms are rapid but lack precision. Monte Carlo methods are time consuming but the most accurate. The new combined system that Monte Carlo methods calculate part of interesting domain and the rest is calculated by neural can calculate the dose distribution rapidly and accurately. The preliminary study showed that neural networks can map functions which contain discontinuous points and inflection points which the dose distributions in inhomogeneous media also have. Performance results between scaled conjugated gradient algorithm and Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm which are used for training the neural network with a different number of neurons were compared. Finally, the dose distributions of homogeneous phantom calculated by a commercialized treatment planning system were used as training data of the neural network. In the case of homogeneous phantom;the mean squared error of percent depth dose was 0.00214. Further works are programmed to develop the neural network model for 3-dimensinal dose calculations in homogeneous phantoms and inhomogeneous phantoms.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.211-215
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• 2015

In case of radiation emergencies, radioactive materials released into environments can cause internal exposure of members of the public. Even though whole body counters are widely used for direct measurement of internally deposited radionuclides, those are not likely to be used at the field to rapidly screen internal exposure. In this study, we estimated the counting efficiencies of portable NaI detector for different size BOMAB phantoms using Monte Carlo transport code to apply handheld gamma spectrometers for rapid screening of internal exposure following radiological accidents. As a result of comparison for two counting geometries, counting efficiencies for sitting model were about 1.1 times higher than those for standing model. We found, however, that differences of counting efficiencies according to different size are higher than those according to counting geometry. Therefore, we concluded that when we assess internal exposure of small size people compared to the reference male, the body size should be considered to estimate more accurate radioactivity in the human body because counting efficiencies of 4-year old BOMAB phantom were about 2.4~3.1 times higher than those of reference male BOMAB phantom.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.133-140
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• 2005

Purpose : This test is designed to identify the validity of treatment plan by implementing real-time dosimetry by means of dose that is absorbed into PTV and OAR when preparing doses of 3D and POP plans. Materials and Methods : In treatment. error can be calculated be comparing Exp. Dose with the actual dose, which has been converted from 'the reading value obtained by placing diode detector on the area to be measured'. Same test can be repeated using Alderson-Rando phantom. Results : Errors were found: A patient(POP plan): 197.6/199=-1.2%, B patient(3D-plan): 199.9/198.7=+0.6%, C patient: 196/200=-1.5%. In addition, considering the resulted value of measuring OAR besides target-dose for C patient showed 96/200, representing does of 47%, the purpose of protection was judged to be duly accomplished. Also it was acknowledged the resulted value of -3.7% met the targeted dose within the range of ${\pm}5%$. Conclusion : Aimed for identifying the usefulness of pre-treatment dose measurement using diode detector, this test was useful to evaluate the validity of curing because it resulted in the identification of category to be protected as well as t dose. Moreover, it is thought to have great advantage in ascertaining the dose of target, dose of which is not calculated yet. Similar to L-gram before treatment, this test is thought to be very effective so that it can bring great advantages in the aspects such as validity of curing method and post-treatment plan as well.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 1976

The perturbation of dose distribution adjacent to cavities in high energy electron has shown that the percentage of dose increase varies markedly as a function of the build-up layer, the length and thickness of the cavities, and the electron energy. The dose distribution showed that cavities similar in size to those encountered in the head and neck measured by industrial film dosimetry and corrected by ionization chambers. The most increased doses by measuring are resulted in a localized dose of up to 130% of that measured at the depth of maximum dose within a homogeneous tissue equivalent phantom. The measured values and correction factors of dose perturbation due to air cavities showed in diagrams and would be summarized as follows. 1. In $8{\sim}12MeV$ electron beams, the most marked dose is observed when the build-up layer thickness is 0.5cm and cavity volume is $2{\times}2{\times}2cm^3$. 2. The highest dose point is located under cavity when the energy is increased and cavity length is longer. 3. The cavity length at which the maximum percentage dose occurs decreases with increasing energy. 4. The highest percentage cavity doses are obtained when the energy is high, the build-up layer is thin, the thickness of the cavity is large, and the length of the cavity is approximately 1 to 3cm. 5. The doses of upper portion of cavity are less than the standard dose distribution as 5 to 10%. 6. The maximum range of electron beam are extended as much as thickness of cavity. 7. A cavity having a length of 5cm closely approximates a cavity of infinite length.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.156-160
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• 2019

Background: To compare the dose of radiation received by the fetus in a pregnant patient irradiated for head and neck cancer using helical tomotherapy and three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3DCRT). Materials and Methods: The patient was modeled with a humanoid phantom to mimic a gestation of 26 weeks. Radiotherapy with a total dose of 2 Gy was delivered with both tomotherapy (2.5 and 5.0 cm jaw size) and 3DCRT. The position of the fetus was predicted to be 45 cm from the field edge at the time of treatment. The delivered dose was measured according to the distance from the field edge and the fetus. Results and Discussion: The accumulated dose to the fetus was 1.6 cGy by 3DCRT and 2 and 2.3 cGy by the 2.5 and 5 cm jaw tomotherapy plans. For tomotherapy, the fetal dose with the 2.5 cm jaw was lower than that with the 5 cm jaw, although the radiation leakage was greater for 2.5 cm jaw plan due to the 1.5 fold longer beam-on time. At the uterine fundus, tomotherapy with a 5 cm jaw delivered the highest dose of 2.4 cGy. When the fetus moves up to 35 cm at the 29th week of gestation, the resultant fetal doses for 3DCRT and tomotherapy with 2.5 and 5 cm jaws were estimated as 2.1, 2.7, and 3.9 cGy, respectively. Conclusion: For tomotherapy, scattering radiation was more important due to the high monitor unit values. Therefore, selecting a smaller jaw size for tomotherapy may reduce the fetal dose. however, evaluation of risk should be individually performed for each patient.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.143-154
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• 1999

Panasonic UD-809P type albedo neutron TL dosimeters mounted on a water phantom were used to measure neutron personal dose equivalent in a Korean nuclear power plant. From the measured TL readings, personal dose equivalents from thermal, epithermal and fast neutrons were evaluated by using a method adopted in a neutron dose calculation algorithm for Panasonic UD-809P type albedo neutron TL dosimeters, which was suggested in a Panasonic TLD System User's Manual. The results showed that personal dose equivalent from fast neutrons could not be adequately evaluated in a field with high thermal neutron fraction to be encountered in a nuclear power plant. This seems to be related to the incomplete incidence of albedo thermal neutrons to the TL dosimeters. In order to evaluate appropriately the personal dose equivalent from fast neutrons in the field condition, new method fer the neutron dose calculation algorithm was suggested. In this new method, neutrons are grouped into thermal neutrons and fast neutrons. For each neutron component, equations for TL response, sensitivity factor, calibration factor and personal dose equivalent were derived.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.147-154
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• 2015

The scatter photons and photoneutrons from high energy photon beams (more than 10 MV) will increase the undesired dose to the patient and the staff working in linear accelerator room. This undesired dose which is found at out-of-field area can increase the probability of secondary malignancy. The purpose of this study is to determine the equivalent dose of scatter photons and neutrons generated by 3 different treatment techniques: 3D-conformal, intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT). The measurement was performed using two types of the optically stimulation luminescence detectors (OSL and OSLN) in the Alderson Rando phantom that was irradiated by 3 different treatment techniques following the actual prostate cancer treatment plans. The scatter photon and neutron equivalent dose were compared among the 3 treatments techniques at the surface in the out-of-field area and the critical organs. Maximum equivalent dose of scatter photons and neutrons was found when using the IMRT technique. The scatter neutrons showed average equivalent doses of 0.26, 0.63 and $0.31mSv{\cdot}Gy^{-1}$ at abdominal surface region which was 20 cm from isocenter for 3D, IMRT and VMAT, respectively. The scattered photons equivalent doses were 6.94, 10.17 and $6.56mSv{\cdot}Gy^{-1}$ for 3D, IMRT and VMAT, respectively. For the 5 organ dose measurements, the scattered neutron and photon equivalent doses in out of field from the IMRT plan were highest. The result revealed that the scatter equivalent doses for neutron and photon were higher for IMRT. So the suitable treatment techniques should be selected to benefit the patient and the treatment room staff.