Development of skeletal substitute materials

We have studied the formulation of skeletal substitutes for an in vivo calibration phantom using the basic data method introduced by White. An equation for calculating the optimum relative mass of corrective additives was developed. Also, epoxy resin based tissue substitutes simulating the skeleton, cortical and trabecular bones were developed. The substitutes were examined for the photon transmissions using 16.6 keV KX-rays from 93mNb and 59.5 keV gamma rays from 241Am. It was found that the experimental transmission curves of the substitutes are in good agreement with the calculated ones. The equation for the corrective additives was validated. The skeletal substitutes were found to be suitable as the corresponding tissues defined in International Commission of Radiological Protection (ICRP) Publication 23. (author)