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Radiation Protection Dosimetry Advance Access published online on September 6, 2007
Radiation Protection Dosimetry, doi:10.1093/rpd/ncm414
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

INTERNAL MICRODOSIMETRY OF INHALED RADON PROGENY IN BRONCHIAL AIRWAYS: ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS

Werner Hofmann1,*, Hatim Fakir1 and Pascal Pihet2

1 Division of Physics and Biophysics, Department of Materials Engineering and Physics, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunner Str. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
2 Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, Direction de la Radioprotection de l'Homme, BP 17, 92262 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France

* Corresponding author: werner.hofmann{at}sbg.ac.at

The objective of the present study was to identify advantages and limitations of the application of microdosimetric concepts for inhaled radon progeny activities in the lungs. The methods employed for this analysis were a recently developed Monte-Carlo microdosimetry code for the calculation of energy deposition in bronchial target cells and the Probability Per Unit Track Length (PPUTL) model, which relates these microdosimetric parameters to cellular radiation effects. The major advantages of internal microdosimetry of radon progeny in bronchial airways are: (i) quantitative characterisation of non-uniform dose distributions and identification of target sites with enhanced carcinogenic potential, (ii) quantification of low doses of alpha particles by the number of cells hit and the dose received by those cells, (iii) illustration of the random variations of cellular doses by specific energy distributions and (iv) establishment of a direct link to cellular radiobiological effects. At present, a major limitation of microdosimetry is the extrapolation of the response of individual cells to the resulting tissue response, which is still not fully explored.


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