Construction and application of BREP phantom for chinese women of childbearing age in radiation protection

The purpose of this study is to construct boundary representation (BREP) phantom for Chinese women of childbearing age, to estimate the external radiation dose and to analyze radiation protection scheme. The BREP phantom for Chinese women of childbearing age was constructed by image segmentation, 3D reconstruction, non-uniform rational B-spline surface construction and voxelization. The photon-irradiated organ absorbed dose-conversion coefficients (DCC_K) of the three female specific organs and the photon effective dose-conversion coefficient (ECC_K) were calculated by Monte-Carlo method. The results showed that age, body fat-tissue thickness, direction and area of irradiation, organ location and volume all affected the dose of women specific organs when receiving medical exposure. In the case of ensuring the quality of the diagnosis, radiation protection for female specific organs can be achieved by organ dose modulation techniques and reducing exposure area or volume. (authors)