When a radiotracer is injected into a patient’s body as part of a nuclear medicine investigation, the entire body is exposed to the ionizing radiation emitted, which can cause biological damage. ...Therefore, it is important to predict the internal radiation dose to properly balance the advantages of radiological examinations. Currently, various Monte Carlo tools, such as MCNP, Geant4, and GATE, are available to estimate internal radiation dosimetry-related quantities, such as
S
values (
S
) and specific absorbed fractions (SAF). Such codes make physics easier for physicists who are experienced with computer programming; however, programming and/or simulation inputs remain a time-consuming and intensive task. In this study, we present a newly developed Geant4-based code for internal dosimetry calculations, namely “DoseCalcs”. To assess the performance of the geometrical methods and computational capabilities of our developed tool, we used the GDML, TEXT, STL, and C++ methods to model the ORNL adult phantom, and a voxel-based structure to construct the ICRP adult male. SAFs in the ORNL and ICRP adult male phantoms for eight discrete mono-energetic photons with energies ranging from 0.01 to 2 MeV are calculated with DoseCalcs and compared to ORNL and OpenDose reference data. The two phantoms showed good agreement with both references, which indicates the accuracy of DoseCalcs for subsequent use in estimating internal dosimetry quantities using a variety of geometrical methods.
Current legislation mandates the inspection and calibration of operational survey radiation monitoring instruments used in nuclear medicine, radiotherapy departments, and other fields utilizing ...ionizing radiation sources. To comply with national and international radiation protection standards, Morocco's National Secondary Standard Dosimetry Laboratory provides reliable calibration results with high accuracy and covers various measurement ranges using attenuators provided by the automated Gamma G10 irradiator or validated beam qualities produced by the X-ray irradiator type X80–320 kV.
This study aims to develop a digital graphical user interface using Python programming language, designed for calibrating radiation protection measuring instruments . The interface is intended to facilitate all operations and calculations related to determining calibration factors and measurement uncertainties in accordance with the ISO 4037 standard, ensuring minimal processing time and minimizing potential error sources . The interface enables calculations to be recorded, as well as the establishment and electronic archiving of the calibration certificate and the report in PDF format using the Hypertext Preprocessor FPDF library (PHP FPDF). With the development of this interface, multiple instruments can be processed per day with high accuracy, streamlining the calibration process and improving efficiency.
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The importance of compliance with international standards to ensure the quality and reliability of measurements in radiation protection was examined.
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Description of X-ray and Gamma-ray irradiators designed for the calibration of radiation protection measuring instruments within the Secondary Dosimetry Calibration Laboratory (SSDL) which is a member of the WHO/IAEA network within the National Center for Radiation Protection of Morocco
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Graphical User Interface using python for the calibration of photon measurement instruments for radiation protection purposes was developped.
Image, graphical abstract
Knowledge of SAF at different energies is crucial for internal dosimetry. For this purpose, a set of calculated SAF values for a mouse voxelized phantom's selected organs are presented below. Values ...of SAF were calculated for mono-energetic photons and electrons with energy varying from 10 keV to 4 MeV using the Monte Carlo simulation via GATE/GEANT4 code (GEANT4 Application for Emission Tomography). The heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, and spleen were considered as the source organs from which the particles were released. Then, the estimated results were compared to those calculated in a previous study using EGS4 code. It is indicated that the obtained results are in good agreement with the reference values for all energies of photons and electrons, with discrepancies less than 9% and 5% for self-irradiation and cross-irradiation, respectively.
•Photon and Electron SAFs were calculated in some organs of Digimuse phantom using GATE/GEANT4 code.•The ICRU publication number 44 served as the reference for the organ compositions and densities used in this study.•Photon SAFs were compared to results obtained with the EGS 4 code.•Between the two series of measurements, there was a very good accord.
