Assessment of specific absorbed fractions for photons and electrons using average adult Japanese female phantom

Manabe, Kentaro   ; Sato, Kaoru   ; Takahashi, Fumiaki  

In the 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), an effective dose is defined as a sum of equivalent doses which are calculated by using male and female reference phantoms based on Caucasian physiological data and averaged over the sexes by tissue weighting factors. Specific absorbed fractions (SAFs), which are essential for internal dosimetry, depend on the body weight and organ masses of phantoms. Then, the dose coefficients, which are committed effective doses per unit intake of radionuclides, developed by ICRP on the basis of the 2007 Recommendations reflect the physical characteristics of Caucasians and are averaged over the sexes. Meanwhile, the physiques of adult Japanese are generally smaller than those of adult Caucasians, and organ masses are also different from each other. Knowledge of the influence of race differences on dose coefficients is important to apply the sex averaged dose coefficients of ICRP to the Japanese system of radiation protection. In this study, SAFs for 25 kinds of mono-energetic electrons and photons ranging from 10 keV to 10 MeV were calculated about the combinations of 67 source regions and 42 target organs using the average adult Japanese female phantom, JF-103, incorporated with a general purpose radiation transport code, MCNPX 2.6.0. The data of this report and the previously published data of JM-103 are applicable to evaluate sex-specific and sex-averaged dose coefficients reflecting the physical characteristics of the average adult Japanese for intakes of all radionuclides not to emit other than photons and electrons.