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Organ and detriment-weighted dose rate coefficients for exposure to radionuclide-contaminated soil considering body morphometries that differ from reference conditions: adults and children

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Abstract

The system of protection established by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) provides a robust framework for ionizing radiation exposure justification, optimization, and dose limitation. The system is built upon fundamental concepts of a reference person, defined in ICRP Publication 89, and the radiation protection quantity effective dose, defined in ICRP Publication 103. For external exposures to radionuclide-contaminated soil, values of the organ dose rate coefficient (Gy/s per Bq/m2) and effective dose rate coefficient (Sv/s per Bq/m2) have been computed by several authors and national laboratories using ICRP-compliant reference phantoms—both stylized and voxelized. These coefficients are of great value in post-accident exposure assessments as seen in Japan following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station disaster. Questions arise, however, among the general public regarding the accuracy of organ and effective dose estimates based upon reference phantom methodologies, especially for those individuals with height and/or total body mass that differ modestly or even substantially from the nearest age-matched reference person. In this pilot study, this issue is explored through use of the extended 351-member UF/NCI hybrid phantom library in which values of organ and detriment-weighted dose rate coefficients are computed for sex/height/mass-specific phantoms, and systematically compared to their values of the effective dose rate coefficient computed using corresponding reference phantoms. Results are given for monoenergetic photons, and then for some 33 different radionuclides, with all dose rate coefficient data provided in a series of electronic annexes. For environmentally relevant radionuclides such as 89Sr, 90Sr, 137Cs, and 131I, percent differences between the detriment-weighted dose rate coefficient computed using non-reference and the effective dose rate coefficient computed using reference phantoms vary only ± 5% for young children approximated by the reference 1-year-old phantom. With increased body size and age, the range of percent differences in these two quantities increases to + 7% to − 14% for the reference 5-year-old, to + 10% to − 27% for the reference 10-year-old, to + 33% to − 31% for the reference 15-year-old, and to + 15% to − 40% for male and female adults.

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Notes

  1. Two versions of the set of annexes are available. The full version may be requested from the corresponding author. An abbreviated set—giving data for only the members of the UF/NCI phantom library—may be found on the journal website accompanying this article.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Contract 5000-68862 from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and its Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) with the University of Florida. Additional support was provided by the German government via BMU (Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety) and BfS (Federal Office for Radiation Protection).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Physics Graduate Program, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Cameron Kofler & Sean Domal

  2. Nuclear Science and Engineering Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Tokai-mura, Japan

    Daiki Satoh

  3. Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Shaheen Dewji

  4. Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

    Keith Eckerman

  5. J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-6550, USA

    Wesley E. Bolch

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  1. Cameron Kofler
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  2. Sean Domal
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  3. Daiki Satoh
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  4. Shaheen Dewji
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  5. Keith Eckerman
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  6. Wesley E. Bolch
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Correspondence to Wesley E. Bolch.

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Kofler, C., Domal, S., Satoh, D. et al. Organ and detriment-weighted dose rate coefficients for exposure to radionuclide-contaminated soil considering body morphometries that differ from reference conditions: adults and children. Radiat Environ Biophys 58, 477–492 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-019-00812-2

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