Influence of the external and internal radioactive contamination of the body and the clothes on the results of the thyroidal 131 I measurements conducted in Belarus after the Chernobyl accident—Part 2: Monte Carlo simulation of response of detectors near the thyroid

Abstract

This paper describes the calculation of the response of the most common types of radiation detectors that were used within the first few weeks after the Chernobyl accident to determine the activity of 131 I in the thyroids of Belarusian subjects of an epidemiologic study of thyroid cancer. The radiation detectors, which were placed against the necks of the subjects, measured the exposure rates due to the emission of gamma rays resulting from the radioactive decay of 131 I in their thyroids. Because of the external and internal radioactive contamination of the monitored subjects, gamma radiation from many radionuclides in various locations contributed to the exposure rates recorded by the detectors. To estimate accurately the contribution from gamma rays emitted from various internal and external parts of the body, the calibration factors of the radiation detectors, expressed in kBq per µR h − 1 , were calculated, by means of Monte Carlo simulation, for external irradiation from unit activities of 17 radionuclides located on 19 parts of the body, as well as for internal irradiation from the same 17 radionuclides in the lungs, from caesium radionuclides distributed uniformly in the whole body, and from 131 I in the thyroid. The calculations were performed for six body sizes, representative of the age range of the subjects. In a companion paper, the levels of external and internal contamination of the body were estimated for a variety of exposure conditions. The results presented in the two papers were combined to calculate the 131 I activities in the thyroids of all 11,732 Belarusian study subjects of an epidemiologic study of thyroid cancer and, in turn, their thyroid doses.