Korean-specific iodine S values for use in internal dosimetry

Abstract

The use of iodine S values derived using the International Commission Radiological Protection (ICRP) phantoms may introduce significant bias in internal dosimetry for Koreans due to anatomical variability. In the current study, we produced an extensive dataset of Korean S values for selected five iodine radioisotopes (I-125, I-129, I-131, I-133, and I-134) for use in radiation protection. To calculate S values, we implemented Monte Carlo simulations using the Mesh-type Reference Korean Phantoms (MRKPs), developed in a high-quality/fidelity mesh format. Noticeable differences were observed in S value comparisons between the Korean and ICRP reference phantoms with ratios (Korean/ICRP) widely ranging from 0.16 to 6.2. The majority of S value ratios were lower than the unity in Korean phantoms (interquartile range = 0.47-1.28; mean = 0.96; median = 0.69). The S values provided in the current study will be extensively utilized in iodine internal dosimetry for Koreans.