Investigation of the effect of using radiation protective glasses on the photon fluence-to-dose conversion coefficients of eye substructures

Abstract

The use of radiation protective glasses is common in radiation-contaminated environments. However, the effect of these glasses has not yet been investigated on the fluence-to-dose conversion coefficients (DCCs). The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of five types of gamma ray protective glasses on the photon fluence-to-DCCs of different eye substructures. For this purpose, a real eye model has been used and its conversion coefficients have been calculated in the presence of five types eye protective glasses with chemical formulae of ZnO–PbO–B2O3, Bi2O3–PbO–B2O3, PbO–B2O3, PbO–BaO–Na2O–MgO–B2O3 and BaO–Nb2O3–P2O5. Calculations were performed for monoenergetic photon sources, whose energy ranges from 0.02 to 10 MeV, with different polar and azimuthal angles. The results indicate that the use of radiation protective glasses has acceptable effects on reducing the fluence-to-DCCs only at low photon energies up to 500 keV. At medium energy levels up to about 1 MeV, the effect of the glasses is negligible. However, at high energies it increases the fluence-to-DCCs for sensitive parts of the eye.

Special issues and computational techniques: the Bernard Wheatley Award for 2021

“…As discussed in various papers published in this journal and elsewhere, the reduction in the occupational dose limit for the lens of the eye has led to a flurry of publications on the effectiveness of using radiation-protective glasses in reducing the dose to the lens. The study performed by Ebrahimi-Khankook et al (2021) contributes to this literature. As in Han et al (2021) a detailed mathematical model of the eye was embedded in the head of an ICRP reference phantom (in this case, that of an adult male).…”

“…The various papers published this year almost all originate from a single group of collaborators and illustrate the need for updated models of the whole body (Choi et al 2021b), the skeleton (Choi et al 2021a), the lens of the eye (Han et al 2021) and the teeth (Shin et al 2021). A detailed mathematical model of the eye embedded in the head of an ICRP reference phantom was also used by Ebrahimi-Khankook et al (2021) to investigate the potential effectiveness of protective glasses in limiting radiation doses to the lens of the eye.…”