Since 1968, the United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR) has studied the biokinetics and tissue dosimetry of uranium and transuranium elements in nuclear workers. As part of the USTUR collaboration with the Million Person Study (MPS) of Low-Dose Health Effects, radiation dose to different parts of the human heart is being estimated for workers with documented intakes of 239Pu or 226Ra. The study may be expanded for workers with intakes of 238U and other radionuclides.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe American radium dial worker (RDW) cohort of over 3,200 persons is being revisited as part of the Million Person Study (MPS) to include a modern approach to RDW dosimetry. An exceptional source of data and contextualization in this project is an extensive collection of electronic records (requiring 43 gigabytes (GB) of storage) digitized from existing microfilm and microfiche housed at the United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR). Although the type, extent, and quality (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs part of the activities of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Task Group 103, the present study developed a new set of respiratory tract organs consisting of the extrathoracic, bronchial, bronchiolar, and alveolar-interstitial regions for newborn, 1-, 5-, 10-, and 15-y-old males and females for use in pediatric mesh-type reference computational phantoms. The developed respiratory tract organs, while preserving the original topologies of those of the pediatric voxel-type reference computational phantoms of ICRP Publication 143, have improved anatomy and detailed structure and also include μm-thick target and source regions prescribed in ICRP Publication 66. The dosimetric impact of the developed respiratory tract organs was investigated by calculating the specific absorbed fraction for internal electron exposures, which were then compared with the ICRP Task Group 96 values.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedical internal radiation dosimetry constitutes a fundamental aspect of diagnosis, treatment, optimization, and safety in nuclear medicine. The MIRD committee of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging developed a new computational tool to support organ-level and suborgan tissue dosimetry (MIRDcalc, version 1). Based on a standard Excel spreadsheet platform, MIRDcalc provides enhanced capabilities to facilitate radiopharmaceutical internal dosimetry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiopharmaceutical dosimetry is usually estimated via organ-level MIRD schema-style formalisms, which form the computational basis for commonly used clinical and research dosimetry software. Recently, MIRDcalc internal dosimetry software was developed to provide a freely available organ-level dosimetry solution that incorporates up-to-date models of human anatomy, addresses uncertainty in radiopharmaceutical biokinetics and patient organ masses, and offers a 1-screen user interface as well as quality assurance tools. The present work describes the validation of MIRDcalc and, secondarily, provides a compendium of radiopharmaceutical dose coefficients obtained with MIRDcalc.
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