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. 2022;98(4):619-630.
doi: 10.1080/09553002.2018.1549756. Epub 2019 Jan 9.

Dosimetry for the study of medical radiation workers with a focus on the mean absorbed dose to the lung, brain and other organs

Robert C Yoder  1 , Lawrence T Dauer  2 , Stephen Balter  3 , John D Boice Jr  4   5 , Helen A Grogan  6 , Michael T Mumma  7 , Christopher N Passmore  8 , Lawrence N Rothenberg  2 , Richard J Vetter  9
Affiliations

Dosimetry for the study of medical radiation workers with a focus on the mean absorbed dose to the lung, brain and other organs

Robert C Yoder et al. Int J Radiat Biol. 2022.

Abstract

Background: The reconstruction of lifetime radiation doses for medical workers presents special challenges not commonly encountered for the other worker cohorts comprising the Million Worker Study.

Methods: The selection of approximately 175,000 medical radiation workers relies on using estimates of lifetime and annual personal monitoring results collected since 1977. Approaches have been created to adjust the monitoring results so that mean organ absorbed doses can be estimated.

Results: Changes in medical technology and practices have altered the radiation exposure environments to which a worker may have been exposed during their career. Other temporal factors include shifts in regulatory requirements that influenced the conduct of radiation monitoring and the changes in the measured dose quantities.

Conclusions: The use of leaded aprons during exposure to lower energy X rays encountered in fluoroscopically based radiology adds complexity to account for the shielding of the organs located in the torso when dosimeters were worn over leaded aprons. Estimating doses to unshielded tissues such as the brain and lens of the eye become less challenging when dosimeters are worn at the collar above the apron. The absence of leaded aprons in the higher energy photon settings lead to a more straightforward process of relating dosimeter results to mean organ doses.

Keywords: Dosimetry; epidemiology; personal monitoring.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure statement

The author’s report no conflicts of interest. RCY was employed by Landauer Inc. who provided the database being used by the NCRP for the Million Person Study. CNP is currently employed by Landauer, Inc. The work in preparing this paper is entirely voluntary, entails no financial implications and only involves the scientific interpretation and application of the radiation measurement data acquired many years ago by Landauer.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The ratio of Effective Dose, E, to the Personal Dose Equivalent, HP(10) for two irradiation geometries in the male anthropomorphic phantom. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The mean absorbed dose to the lung for males and females for two irradiation geometries. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The mean absorbed dose to the brain per HP(10) for males and females for two irradiation geometries. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
The mean absorbed dose to four tissues per HP(10) for the male body in the AP geometry. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
The mean absorbed dose to four tissues per HP(10) for the female body in the AP geometry. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
The mean absorbed dose to four tissues per HP(10) for the male body in the Left Lateral geometry. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
The mean absorbed dose to four tissues per HP(10) for the female body in the Left Lateral geometry. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
The ratio of the female to male mean absorbed dose to the lung in the AP and Left Lateral geometries. Data derived from information presented in ICRP Publications 74 and 116 (ICRP 1996, 2010).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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