Dose coefficients of mesh-type reference Korean phantoms (MRKPs) for idealized external exposure geometries of photons and electrons

Abstract

The present study produced Korean-specific dose coefficients for idealized external exposures to photons and electrons by performing Monte Carlo dose calculations with mesh-type reference Korean phantoms (MRKPs). The Korean dose coefficients were then compared with those previously calculated using the mesh-type reference computational phantoms (MRCPs) of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). For photons, excellent agreements in the organ/tissue dose coefficients between the Korean and ICRP phantoms were observed for the most energies except for the low energies (<0.1 MeV), in which significant differences were observed. For example, the colon dose coefficient of the female MRKP was ∼1780 times lower at 0.02 MeV for LLAT. For electrons, while excellent agreements were observed at the energies > ∼30 MeV, significant differences were observed in the lower energy region, especially from 0.3 to 20 MeV. For example, the gonad dose coefficient of the male MRKP was ∼57 times lower at 1.5 MeV for PA. When comparing the effective dose coefficients, the differences were generally small, i.e., generally less than 20 %, for both photons and electrons, although some exposure cases showed notable differences (e.g., 32 % at 0.03-MeV photon and 61 % at 10-MeV electron for PA).