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Radiotherapy Physics
Published in Debbie Peet, Emma Chung, Practical Medical Physics, 2021
Andrea Wynn-Jones, Caroline Reddy, John Gittins, Philip Baker, Anna Mason, Greg Jolliffe
One use for sealed sources in radiotherapy is for performing constancy checks (QC) on radiation monitoring equipment (such as ionisation chambers). When performing QC on a linear accelerator, it is essential to know that the variation measured is a result of fluctuation in the output of the linear accelerator and not due to changes in the sensitivity of the chamber. As the activity of the Strontium-90 source decays at a predictable rate (with a half-life of 29.1 years), it can be used to ensure a consistent response from the measurement equipment over many years. Typical strontium sources used for radiation monitoring QC have activities in the range of 10–900 MBq, and so to use sources in this way the HSE must be notified as they are more radioactive than the notification quantity of 10 kBq.
Area and Individual Radiation Monitoring
Published in Arash Darafsheh, Radiation Therapy Dosimetry: A Practical Handbook, 2021
For the purposes of this chapter, external radiation monitoring includes the following:Area monitoring – the measurement of radiation levels in adjacent areas outside shielded radiotherapy rooms and accelerators, or outside shielded radioactive sources;Individual monitoring – the measurement of doses received by individuals working outside shielded radiotherapy rooms and accelerators or in the vicinity of the shielded radioactive sources.
The Historical Experience*
Published in Vilma R. Hunt, Kathleen Lucas-Wallace, Jeanne M. Manson, Work and the Health of Women, 2020
Vilma R. Hunt, Kathleen Lucas-Wallace, Jeanne M. Manson
It is still difficult to explain the low level of concern for the reproductive experience of those in the health professions, other than in terms of consistent disregard for the health and safety of hospital employees in all areas, for example, infectious disease control and exposure to anesthetic gases. Diagnostic and therapeutic radiation procedures involving technicians, nurses, and radiologists have provided a probable risk for adverse pregnancy outcome at least comparable with that for lead exposure over the past 20 years. Survey programs of radiation monitoring, extended by extrapolation to the total population, have resulted in estimates of genetic dose to the U.S. population from medical X-rays, natural background radiation, and radioactive fallout to date. There is then a quantitative sense of the total radiation impact on the genetic pool, but no detailed epidemiologic studies of high risk groups, such as hospital workers, to provide detailed information.
Severity scoring systems for radiation-induced GI injury – prioritization for use of GI-ARS medical countermeasures
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2023
Doreswamy Kenchegowda, David L. Bolduc, Lalitha Kurada, William F. Blakely
The GI tract is highly sensitive to radiation-induced damage due to its need for producing a mucosal epithelium and its continuous proliferation of crypt stem cells. The extent of injury to the GI tract is a major factor in survival from severe life-threatening radiation exposures. The conventional treatment for GI injury is active supportive care based on clinical signs in animals (Waselenko et al. 2004). This conventional treatment is required even if an effective medical countermeasure was available. Management of GI-ARS incidences whether accidental or through malevolent means will depend on the type of event, and related specific knowledge of those affected. Specific emergency plans will be implemented to take advantage of existing radiation monitoring systems and radiation dose assessment techniques for sorting out exposed people for triage and treatment applications. Individuals requiring medical treatment for GI-ARS requiring limited medical resources will depend on the patient’s triage status.
Bio-acoustic signaling; exploring the potential of sound as a mediator of low-dose radiation and stress responses in the environment
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
Bruno F. E. Matarèse, Jigar Lad, Colin Seymour, Paul N. Schofield, Carmel Mothersill
The resulting electron-phonon interactions in the surrounding atoms created by these processes lead to a localized increase of temperature in the irradiated matter and resulting a transient thermoelastic expansion of the biological structure generating pressure waves which constitute X-ray induced acoustic signals (Garcia et al. 1988). These are directionless and propagated in three dimensions and form, for example, the basis of X-ray acoustic imaging investigated for the recent past decades. (Bowen et al. 1991; Hickling et al. 2014). Exploitation of this process is under development for particularly dosimetry and radiation monitoring during radiotherapy (Liangzhong et al. 2013; Hickling et al. 2016). While resolution of whole tissue imaging by this method is poor, work is now being undertaken to examine the possibility for use in X-ray acoustic computed tomography (XACT) for medical diagnosis (Liangzhong et al. 2013; Xiang et al. 2013, 2014; Samant et al. 2020) allowing low-dose, real-time, three dimensional imaging requiring only single site access by an electro-acoustic probe.
Mortality from leukemia, cancer and heart disease among U.S. nuclear power plant workers, 1957–2011
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
John D. Boice, Sarah S. Cohen, Michael T. Mumma, Derek A. Hagemeyer, Heidi Chen, Ashley P. Golden, R. Craig Yoder, Lawrence T. Dauer
To account for the possibility that workers who frequently worked at different utilities each year, i.e. so called transient workers, differed from workers who remained most of their career at a single facility, an adjustment for mobility was made. Worker mobility was classified into two categories: high mobility (workers who were monitored at 2 to >10 facilities) and low mobility (workers monitored at a single facility) (Table 1). The adjustment for mobility did not significantly change the estimates of risk so was not retained in the final models (Supplement Table 4). Analyses with and without an adjustment for the duration of radiation monitoring were performed. To adjust for the duration of radiation monitoring, workers were classified into one of six categories of years monitored (<1, 1–4, 5–10, 10–19, 20–29, >30). Because time must elapse between exposure and the appearance of a consequent health event, radiation doses were lagged in the analysis. For leukemia other than CLL and for MDS, the dose lagging was 2 years; for CLL all solid cancers, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, Parkinson’s disease and IHD, doses were lagged 10 years. A 5-year lag was also evaluated for lung cancer.