Assessment of specific absorbed fractions for photons and electrons using average adult Japanese female phantom

In the 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the procedure for calculating effective doses was modified as follows. Equivalent doses are evaluated using the male and female voxel phantoms on the basis of reference anatomical data of Caucasians, and effective doses are calculated using sex-averaged equivalent doses in applying tissue weighting factors. Specific absorbed fractions (SAFs), which are essential data for calculating internal doses, depend on the body weights, organ masses, and positional relations of organs of the phantoms. Then, the dose coefficients, which are committed effective doses per unit intake of radionuclides, developed by ICRP on the basis of the 2007 Recommendations reflect the physical characteristics of Caucasians and are averaged over the sexes. Meanwhile, the physiques of adult Japanese are generally smaller than those of adult Caucasians, and organ masses are also different from each other. Therefore, dose coefficients reflecting Japanese physical characteristics are different from those of ICRP. Knowledge of the influence of race differences on dose coefficients is important to apply the sex averaged dose coefficients of ICRP to the Japanese system of radiation protection. SAF data based on phantoms which have Japanese physical characteristics is essential for assessment of the dose coefficients reflecting Japanese physical characteristics. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency constructed average adult Japanese phantoms, JM-103 (male) and JF-103 (female), and is developing a dose estimation method for internal exposure using these phantoms. This report provides photon and electron SAFs of JF-103. The data of this report and the previously published data of JM-103 are applicable to evaluate sex-specific and sex-averaged dose coefficients reflecting the physical characteristics of the average adult Japanese for intakes of radionuclides emitting photons and electrons. Appendix as CD-ROM. (J.P.N.)