• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.238-247
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• 2023

The present work represents a technical guideline for decommissioning a disused teletherapy machine model Theratron-780 and contains category one ⁶⁰Co radioactive source. The first section predicts the dose rate from the source in case of normal and radiological emergency situations via FLUKA-MC simulation code. Moreover, the dose assessment for the occupational during the whole process is calculated and compared to the measured values. A suggested cordoned area for safety and security in a radiological emergency is simulated. The second section lists the whole process's technical procedures, including (preview, dismantle, securing, transport and storage) of the disused teletherapy machine. Results show that the maximum obtained accumulated dose for occupational were found to be 24.5 ± 4.9 μSv in the dismantle and securing process in addition to 3.5 ± 1.8 μSv during loading on the transport vehicle and unloading at the storage facility. It was found that the measured accumulated dose for workers is in good agreement with the estimated one by uncertainty not exceeding 5% in normal operating conditions.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2014

Liquid ionization chamber is filled with liquid equivalent material unlike air filled ionization chamber. The high density material allow very small-volume chamber to be constructed that still have a sufficiently high sensitivity. However liquid ionization chamber should be considered for both initial recombination and general recombination. We, therefore, studied using the Co-60 beam as the continuous beam and the microLion chamber (PTW) for comparing the ion collection efficiency by Greening theory, two-dose rate method and our experiment method. The measurements were carried out using Theratron 780 as the cobalt machine and water phantom and 0.6 cc Farmer type ionization chamber was used with microLion chamber in same condition for measuring the charge of microLion chamber according to the dose rates. Dose rate was in 0.125~0.746 Gy/min and voltages applied to the microLion chamber were +400, +600 and +800 V. As the result, the collection efficiency by three method was generally less than 1%. In particular, our experimental collection efficiency was in good agreement within 0.3% with Greening theory except the lowest two dose rates. The collection efficiency by two-dose rate method also agreed with Greening theory generally less than 1%, but the difference was about 4% when the difference of two dose rates were lower. The ion recombination correction factors by Greening theory, two-dose rate method and our experiment were 1.0233, 1.0239 and 1.0316, respectively, in SSD 80 cm, depth 5 cm recommended by TRS-398 protocol. Therefore we confirmed that the loss by ion recombination was about 3% in this condition. We think that our experiment method for ion recombination correction will be useful tool for radiation dosimetry in continuous beam.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.35-42
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• 1993

The dose response of the number of micronuclei in cytokinesis-blocked (CB) lymphocytes after in vitro irradiation with $\gamma$-rays and neutrons in the 5 dose ranges was studied for a heterogeneous population of 4 donors. One thousand binucleated cells were systematically scored for micronuclei. Measurements performed after irradiation showed a dose-dependent increase in micronuclei (MN) frequency in each of the donors studied. The dose-response curves were analyzed by a linear-quadratic model, frequencies per 1000 CB cells were ($0.31{\pm}0.049$)D+($0.0022{\pm}0.0002)D^2+(13.19{\pm}1.854) (r^2=1.000,\;X^2=0.7074,\;p=0.95$) following $\gamma$ irradiation, and ($0.99{\pm}0.528$)\;D+(0.0093{\pm}0.0047)\;D^2+(13.31{\pm}7.309)\;(r^2=0.996,\;X^2=7.6834,\;p=0.11) following neutrons irradiation (D is irradiation dose in cGy). The relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of neutrons compared with $\gamma$-rays was estimated by best fitting linear-quadratic model. In the micronuclei frequency between 0.05 and 0.8 per cell, the RBE of neutrons was $2.37{\pm}0.17$. Since the MN assay is simple and rapid, it may be a good tool for evaluating the $\gamma$-ray and neutron response.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.71-80
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• 2012

In order to verify exact dose distributions in the state-of-the-art radiation techniques, a newly designed three-dimensional dosimeter and technique has been took strongly into consideration. The main purpose of our study is to verify the optimized parameters of polymer gel as a real volumetric dosimeter in terms of the various study of MRI. We prepared a gel dosimeter by combing 8% of gelatin, 8% of MAA, and 10 mM of THPC. We used a Co-60 gamma-ray teletherapy unit and delivered doses of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 Gy to each polymer gel with a solid phantom. We used a fast spin-echo pulse to acquire the characterized T2 time of MRI. The signal noise ratio (SNR) of the head & neck coil was a relatively lower sensitivity than the body coil; therefore the dose uncertainty of head & neck coil would be lower than body coil's. But the dose uncertainty and resolution of the head & neck coil were superior to the body coil in this study. The TR time between 1,500 ms and 2,000 ms showed no significant difference in the dose resolution, but TR of 1,500 ms showed less dose uncertainty. For the slice thickness of 2.5 mm, less dose uncertainty of TE times was at 4 Gy, as well, it was the lowest result over 4 Gy at TE of 12 ms. The dose uncertainty was not critical up to 6 Gy, but the best dose resolution was obtained at 20 ms up to 8 Gy. The dose resolution shows the lowest value was over 20 ms and was an excellent result in the number of excitation (NEX) of three. The NEX of two was the highest dose resolution. We concluded that the better result of slice thickness versus NEX was related to the NEX increment and thin slice thickness.