Dose distribution calculation for in-vivo X-ray fluorescence scanning

R. FIGUEROA; E. LOZANO; M. VALENTE

REVISTA MEXICANA DE FíSICA

SOC MEXICANA FISICA

Año: 2011 p. 1 - 9

0035-001X

In-vivo X-ray fluorescence constitutes a useful and accurate technique, worldwide established for constituent elementary distribution assessment. Actually, concentration distributions of arbitrary user-selected elements can be achieved along sample surface with the aim of identifying and simulta- neously quantifying every constituent element. The method is based on the use of a collimated X-ray beam reaching the sample. However, one common drawback for considering the application of this technique for routine clinical examinations was the lack of information about associated dose delivery. This work presents a complete study of the dose distribution resulting from a typ- ical in-vivo X-ray fluorescence scanning for quantifying biohazard materials on human hands. Absorbed dose has been estimated by means of dedicated dosimetric models specifically developed to this aim. In addition, complete dose distributions have been obtained by means of full radiation transport calculations in based on pure stochastic Monte Carlo techniques. A dedi- cated subroutine has been developed using the PENELOPE 2008 main code also integrated with dedicated programs -MatLab supported- for 3D dose distribution visualization. The obtained results show very good agreement between approximate analytical models and full descriptions by means of Monte Carlo simulations.