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Radiation Protection Dosimetry 108:3-26 (2004)
© 2004 © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved

Invited Paper

Comparative dosimetry of BEIR VI revisited

Anthony C. James1,*, Alan Birchall2 and Gamal Akabani3

1 ACJ & Associates, Inc., 129 Patton Street, Richland, WA 99352, USA
2 Dose Assessments Department, National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0RQ, UK
3 Department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center, Research Drive, Durham, NC 27710, USA

* Corresponding author: consult{at}acj-associates.com

The BEIR VI Committee applied recent developments in the comparative dosimetry of radon exposures in mines and homes to evaluate the so-called K-factor used to extrapolate the excess relative risk of lung cancer determined for underground uranium miners to exposures in homes. This paper describes methodological aspects of these developments that were specified ambiguously in the BEIR VI report. Specifically, in the section dealing with dosimetry (Appendix B of the BEIR VI report), the K-factor was unusually defined in terms of exposure to radon gas (Kgas), and not in terms of exposure to potential alpha energy (K). An incorrect value of unity was calculated for Kgas. This implies a value of 0.44 for K. In this paper, we describe how application of the ICRP Publication 66 lung and dosimetric models to evaluate the regional lung dose per unit exposure to potential alpha-energy in mines and homes yields the value of K = unity. This confirms the BEIR VI Committee's choice of K = 1 for application in their risk extrapolation model. The paper also reviews the use of doses to specific sub-cellular targets in the evaluation of K. This yields a somewhat greater divergence in the corresponding estimates of K, but again an overall average value of K = unity. The paper describes the methods used to calculate alpha particle hit probabilities for specific sub-cellular targets, and the resulting estimates of single- and multiple-hit probabilities obtained for exposures in mines and homes, as a function of the respective exposure rates.


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