Absorbed Dose Calculations Using Mesh-based Human Phantoms And Monte Carlo Methods

Health risks attributable to the exposure to ionizing radiation are considered to be a function of the absorbed or equivalent dose to radiosensitive organs and tissues. However, as human tissue cannot express itself in terms of equivalent dose, exposure models have to be used to determine the distribution of equivalent dose throughout the human body. An exposure model, be it physical or computational, consists of a representation of the human body, called phantom, plus a method for transporting ionizing radiation through the phantom and measuring or calculating the equivalent dose to organ and tissues of interest. The FASH2 (Female Adult meSH) and the MASH2 (Male Adult meSH) computational phantoms have been developed at the University of Pernambuco in Recife/Brazil based on polygon mesh surfaces using open source software tools and anatomical atlases. Representing standing adults, FASH2 and MASH2 have organ and tissue masses, body height and body mass adjusted to the anatomical data published by the International Commission on Radiological Protection for the reference male and female adult. For the purposes of absorbed dose calculations the phantoms have been coupled to the EGSnrc Monte Carlo code, which can transport photons, electrons and positrons through arbitrary media. This paper reviews the development of the FASH2 and the MASH2 phantoms and presents dosimetric applications for X-ray diagnosis and for prostate brachytherapy.