Photon dose response functions for accurate skeletal dosimetry for Korean and Asian populations

Abstract

To enhance skeletal dosimetry in conjunction with the adult mesh-type reference Korean phantoms (MRKPs), Korean/Asian photon fluence-to-skeletal dose response functions (DRFs) were established utilizing an updated version of micro-CT-based detailed bone models from Tsinghua University. These bone models were incorporated into the MRKPs using the parallel geometry feature of Geant4. We calculated bone-site-specific electron absorbed fractions and used them to generate DRFs, following a similar methodology employed for ICRP-116 DRFs that have been used with the ICRP reference phantoms for skeletal dosimetry. To assess dosimetric implications of the Korean/Asian DRFs, we calculated RBM and BE doses for the MRKPs exposed to photon beams in the antero-posterior direction using the Korean/Asian and ICRP-116 DRFs. For energies ≥200 keV, the Korean/Asian DRFs-based skeletal doses exhibited excellent agreement with the ICRP-116 DRFs-based skeletal doses, attributed to the existence of charged particle equilibrium across the bone site. Conversely, significant differences of up to ∼2.3 times were observed at lower energies, due to differences in the skeletal tissue distributions of bone models used to derive the Korean/Asian and ICRP-116 DRFs. The DRFs established in this study are expected to yield more accurate skeletal doses for Korean and Asian populations compared to the ICRP-116 DRFs.