The UF Family of hybrid phantoms of the pregnant female for computational radiation dosimetry.

Efforts to assess in utero radiation doses and related quantities to the developing fetus should account for the presence of the surrounding maternal tissues. Maternal tissues can provide varying levels of protection to the fetus by shielding externally-emitted radiation or, alternatively, can become sources of internally-emitted radiation following the biokinetic uptake of medically-administered radiopharmaceuticals or radionuclides located in the surrounding environment--as in the case of the European Union's SOLO project (Epidemiological Studies of Exposed Southern Urals Populations). The University of Florida had previously addressed limitations in available computational phantom representation of the developing fetus by constructing a series of hybrid computational fetal phantoms at eight different ages and three weight percentiles.