Abstract
When accidents by industrial radiography sources occur, it is necessary to accurately and quickly estimate radiation doses for the effective treatment of those individuals with acute radiation syndrome (ARS). In the present study, a comprehensive set of absorbed dose coefficients (DCs) was obtained by performing Monte Carlo simulations using computational human phantoms of different body sizes. These DCs provide an “initial and rapid” dose estimation for individuals accidentally exposed to industrial radiography sources. The adult mesh-type ICRP reference computational phantoms (MRCPs) and the adult 10th and 90th percentile computational phantoms, constructed by deforming the MRCPs, were implemented in the Geant4 Monte Carlo code. We subsequently simulated the most commonly used industrial radiography sources (i.e., 192Ir and 60Co) placed in 72 different locations near the human body. It was found that body size significantly influences the DCs, especially when the source is closer than 1 m to the human body, which is a case frequently encountered during industrial radiography accidents. Acknowledging the significance of these results, the ICRP is planning to include the full set of the calculated DCs from this study in a forthcoming ICRP Publication, which is being prepared by the ICRP Committee 2 Task Group 103 “Mesh-type Reference Computational Phantoms.”
Highlights
Accidents by industrial radiography sources, which usually involve powerful gamma-emitting sources, could result in very high radiation doses to workers, leading to serious injuries or even death [1]
The analysis of the calculated dose coefficients (DCs) for industrial radiography sources showed that the DCs generally tend to decrease with an increase in the source distance, while the opposite tendency was observed for some cases
For the second group of source levels, which are much further away from the level of the lungs compared to the first group, the lung DCs are mainly influenced by the change of the shielding effect of the intervening tissue, which significantly decreases with the increase of the source distance
Summary
Accidents by industrial radiography sources, which usually involve powerful gamma-emitting sources, could result in very high radiation doses to workers, leading to serious injuries or even death [1]. Even members of the public could be accidentally irradiated by such sources when the sources are not properly controlled or regulated. According to Lima et al [3], a total of 80 industrial radiography accidents involving 120 workers and 110 members of the public, including 12 deaths, were recorded globally between 1896 and 2014. Radiation accidents could lead to high radiation doses, which could induce acute radiation syndrome (ARS); these are primarily classified into hematopoietic (0.2–2 Gy), gastrointestinal (6–10 Gy), and cerebrovascular (>10 Gy) syndromes [4]. For the effective management of patients (i.e., exposed individuals) with ARS, initial medical triage should be performed accurately and rapidly, whereby those patients who could develop symptoms should be separately identified from those
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