The definition of low doses and their importance in radiobiology
by A.D. Oliveira
International Journal of Low Radiation (IJLR), Vol. 6, No. 3, 2009

Abstract: The aim of this work is to introduce a new dosimetric approach that is expected to contribute to characterising and distinguishing low, intermediate and high dose ranges. The emphasis will be on the low dose range, owing to the importance of the biological effects at low doses. A Monte Carlo code was used to simulate the energy degradation of photons in water, where the coherent and incoherent scattering were sampled from the Thompson and Klein-Nishina cross-sections corrected by the form factor and the incoherent scattering function, respectively. For the photoelectric effect, the kerma approximation was used, meaning that the simulation of the interactions of photons provides the initial spectra of the secondary electrons that cause damages at the cellular and intracellular levels. A new scoring method was proposed that allowed multiscale analysis of the energy deposited by radiation, inspired by the basic definition of an absorbed dose. Data for analysis were obtained from the simulation of a photon beam with extremely low dose values in a water phantom. Implications of the results in radiobiological studies are discussed.

Online publication date: Sun, 11-Oct-2009

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Low Radiation (IJLR):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com