Abstract
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a relatively significant number of radiological accidents have occurred in recent years mainly because of the practices referred to as potentially high-risk activities, such as radiotherapy, large irradiators and industrial radiography, especially in gammagraphy assays. In some instances, severe injuries have occurred in exposed persons due to high radiation doses. In industrial radiography, 80 cases involving a total of 120 radiation workers, 110 members of the public including 12 deaths have been recorded up to 2014. Radiological accidents in industrial practices in Brazil have mainly resulted in development of cutaneous radiation syndrome (CRS) in hands and fingers. Brazilian data include 5 serious cases related to industrial gammagraphy, affecting 7 radiation workers and 19 members of the public; however, none of them were fatal. Some methods of reconstructive dosimetry have been used to estimate the radiation dose to assist in prescribing medical treatment. The type and development of cutaneous manifestations in the exposed areas of a person is the first achievable gross dose estimation. This review article presents the state-of-the-art reconstructive dosimetry methods enabling estimation of local radiation doses and provides guidelines for medical handling of the exposed individuals. The review also presents the Chilean and Brazilian radiological accident cases to highlight the importance of reconstructive dosimetry.
Highlights
The relationship between industrial radiography and radiological accidents is well recognized, which makes this industrial practice one of the highest potential risks for human health
This review focused on discussing the state-of-the-art physical, biological and computational reconstructive dosimetry methods commonly used in the last 10 years to manage radiation exposure cases
The computational methods are based on Monte Carlo simulation, such as the numerical code MCNPX and a program based on Voxel anthropomorphic phantom
Summary
The relationship between industrial radiography and radiological accidents is well recognized, which makes this industrial practice one of the highest potential risks for human health. It is possible to estimate dose distributions in the organism, effective doses or doses to specific organs with the help of numerical phantoms of human body for planned or accident situations, for radiation protection purposes or dose reconstruction for overexposed individuals These approaches have recently been used for accidents during interventional radiology procedures, industrial irradiation processing and events with lost or orphan sources [28,29]. CRS has a spectrum of manifestations and its severity depends on a number of conditions They include the absorbed dose by the skin and factors such as doses-rates, geometry of exposure, affected area of the body, and energy of the radiation. Mild to severe Surgery may be needed Very severe to extremely severe; surgery (complex procedures) always needed
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
