Evaluating bone marrow dosimetry with the addition of bone marrow structures to the medical internal radiation dose phantom.

Background: Reliable estimates of radiation dose to bone marrow are critical to understanding the risk of radiation-induced cancers. Although the medical internal radiation dose phantom is routinely used for dose estimation, bone marrow is not defined in the phantom. Consequently, methods of indirectly estimating bone marrow dose have been implemented based on dose to surrogate volumes or average dose to soft tissue.

Methods: In this study, new bone marrow structures were implemented and evaluated to the medical internal radiation dose phantom in geant4, offering improved fidelity. The dose equivalent to the bone marrow was calculated across medical, occupational, and space radiation exposure scenarios, and compared with results using prior indirect estimation methods.

Conclusion: Our results show that bone marrow dose may be overestimated by up to a factor of three when using the traditional methods when compared with the improved fidelity medical internal radiation dose method, specifically at clinical x-ray energies.