Chapter-2

Radiation Dosimetry and Units

Dr. Afroza Shelley

Professor & Chairman
Department of Nuclear Engineering
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Syllabus Content of Chapter-2: (Total Lect: 7)
• Absorption of Energy,
• Ionization Exposure,
• Radiation Absorbed Dose, Dose Equivalent Submultiples,
• Effective Dose, Dose Rate, Flux,
• Relationship of Units, Exposure Measurement,
• The Free Air Chamber, The Air Wall Chamber,
• Exposure Dose Relationship,
• Absorbed Dose Measurement,
• Brag Gray Principle,
• Kerma Source Strength,
• Specific Gamma Ray Emission,
• Dose from Surface Contamination, Skin Contamination,
• Internally Deposited Radioisotopes,
• Effective Half Life,
• Total Dose, Dose Commitment. 2
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley
 Radiation Dosimetry
Radiation dosimetry is the measurement, calculation and
assessment of the absorbed doses and assigning those
doses to individuals.
It is the science and practice that attempts to quantitatively
relate specific measures made in a radiation field to
chemical and/or biological changes that the radiation would
produce in a target.

Ionizing radiation-Hazard Symbol

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 Types of Radiation Dosimetry
There are two types of radiation exposure, external and internal
exposure, dosimetry may be also categorized as:
1. External Dosimetry. External exposure is radiation that
comes from outside our body and interacts with us.
• We analyze predominantly exposure from gamma rays and beta
particles.
• In general, alpha particles, constitute no external exposure
hazard because the particles generally do not pass through skin.
• Since photons and beta interact through electromagnetic
forces and neutrons interact through nuclear forces, their
detection methods and dosimetry are substantially different.
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 Types of Radiation Dosimetry
• External dosimetry is based on measurements with a dosimeter,
or inferred from measurements made by other radiological
protection instruments.

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 Types of Radiation Dosimetry (cont…)
2. Internal Dosimetry. If the source of radiation is inside our body,
we say, it is internal exposure.
• The intake of radioactive material can occur through various
pathways such as ingestion of radioactive contamination in food
or liquids.
• Protection from internal exposure is more complicated. Most
radionuclides will give you much more radiation dose if they can
somehow enter your body, than they would if they remained
outside.
• Internal dosimetry assessment relies on a variety of
monitoring, bio-assay or radiation imaging techniques.
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 8
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Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 10
 What is the difference between internal and
external dosimetry?
 Internal dosimetry assessment relies on a variety of
monitoring, bio-assay or radiation imaging techniques,
 External dosimetry is based on measurements with a
dosimeter, or inferred from measurements made by other
radiological protection instruments.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 11

Relationship between
• Activity A(t),
• Absorbed doses DT
• Equivalent doses HT
• Effective doses E

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Example: Consider a single cell, with dimensions 10 μm × 10 μm
× 10 μm and mass = 10−12 kg, in a tissue of weight 0.1 g, in which
a low LET particle, 1 keV/μm, transfers 1 keV to the cell as it
passes through the cell. Calculate the radiation absorbed dose to
the tissue.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 15

 Exposure Unit : X- and Gamma Radiation
For external radiation of any given energy flux, the absorbed dose
to any region within an organism depends on the
• type and energy of the radiation,
• depth within the organism at the point at which the absorbed
dose is required, and
• elementary constitution of the absorbing medium at this point.

For example, bone, consisting of higher-atomic-numbered

elements (Ca and P) absorbs more energy from an X-ray beam per
unit mass of absorber than soft tissue (C, O, H, and N).

X-ray fields to which an organism may be exposed are frequently

specified in exposure units.
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 16
 Exposure Unit
The exposure unit is a radiometric unit rather than a dosimetric unit.
That is, it is a measure of the photon fluence and is related to the
amount of energy transferred from the X-ray field to a unit mass
of air.
[Photon fluence (units: mol m−2) measures the number of photons falling on
the sphere, whereas energy fluence (units: J m−2) measures the energy
incident on the sphere.]

One exposure unit is defined as that quantity of X- or gamma

radiation that produces, in air, ions carrying one coulomb of
charge (of either sign) per kilogram of air.

It does not have a special name, and is being called an ―X unit‖.

1X unit = 1 C/kg air.
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 17
The operational definition of the exposure unit may be converted
into the more fundamental units of energy absorption per unit
mass of air by using the fact that
• the charge on a single ion is 1.6 × 10−19 C and
• the average energy dissipated in the production of a single ion
pair in air is 34 eV.

Therefore,

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 18

 Roentgen
The SI unit of X-ray exposure was called the roentgen and was
symbolized by R.

The roentgen was defined as that ―quantity of X-or gamma

radiation that produces ions carrying one statcoulomb (sC) (1 sC = 3
× 109 C) of charge of either sign per cubic centimeter of dry air at 0◦C
and 760 mm Hg‖.

1R = 1 sC/cm3.

[The statcoulomb is defined as follows: If two stationary objects each carry a

charge of 1 statC and are 1 cm apart in vacuum, they will electrically repel
each other with a force of 1 dyne. From this definition, it is straightforward to
find an equivalent charge in coulombs.]

Since 1 ion carries a charge of 4.8 × 10−10 sC and the mass of 1 cm3
of standard air is 0.001293 g, we can calculate the dose to the air
from an exposure of 1 R: 19
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley
The relationship between the coulomb per kilogram exposure unit
and the roentgen may be calculated as follows:

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Exposure Measurement: The Free Air Chamber
• The X-ray beam enters through the entry port diaphragm and
interacts with the cylindrical column of air (A–B–C–D), .

• All the ions resulting from these interactions is collected by

the collector plate C, causing current to flow in the external
circuit.

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Exposure Measurement: The Free Air Chamber (cont…)

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Exposure Measurement: The Free Air Chamber (cont…)

• Most of these collected ions lose their energy by ionizing

interactions as they pass through the air.
• The guard ring G and the guard wires W help to keep
electric field lines straight and perpendicular to the
plates.
• The guard wires are connected to a voltage-dividing
network to ensure a uniform potential drop across the plates.
• The electric field intensity between the plates is on the
order of 100 V/cm—high enough to collect the ions before
they recombine but not great enough to accelerate the
secondary electrons produced by the primary ionizing
particles to ionizing energy.
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 23
Exposure Measurement: The Free Air Chamber (cont…)

• The number of ions collected because of X-ray

interactions in the collecting volume is calculated from
the current flow and the exposure rate.
• For the exposure unit to be measured in this way, all the
energy of the primary electrons must be dissipated in
the air within the meter. This condition can be satisfied by
making the air chamber larger than the maximum range of
the primary electrons.
• Electron equilibrium is present when the same number of
electrons with the same energy distribution enter and
exit this volume element.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 24

Example: The opening of the diaphragm in the entrance port of a free
air ionization chamber is 1 cm in diameter, and the length AB of the
sensitive volume is 5 cm. A 200-kV X-ray beam projected into the
chamber produces a steady current in the external circuit of 0.01 μA.
The temperature at the time of the measurement was 20◦C and the
pressure was 750 mm Hg. What is the exposure rate in this beam of
X-rays?

Current 0.01 μA =10−8 C/s.

Volume π × (0.5 cm)2× 5 cm= 3.927 cm3.
Mass of 1cm3 air = 0.001293 g

1 X unit = 3876 R

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 Exposure Measurement: The Air Wall Chamber
• The free air chamber is practical for laboratory standard
whereas, the air wall chamber is more portable and usable for
field use.
• It is an exposure measurement instrument with walls of “air
equivalent” material that is, a wall material whose X-ray
absorption properties are very similar to those of air.
• The instrument consists of an outer cylindrical wall, about 4.75-
mm thick, made of electrically conducting plastic.
• Coaxial with the outer wall, but separated from it by a very high-
quality insulator, is a center wire.

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 Exposure Measurement: The Air Wall Chamber (cont…)

• This center wire, or central anode, is positively charged with

respect to the wall.
• When the chamber is exposed to X-radiation or to gamma
radiation, the ionization, which is produced in the measuring
cavity as a result of interactions between photons and the wall,
discharges the condenser, thereby decreasing the potential of the
anode.
• This decrease in the anode voltage is directly proportional to
the ionization produced in the cavity, which in turn is directly
proportional to the radiation exposure.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 27

• Care must be taken in choosing the wall thickness. If the walls
are too thin, an insufficient number of photons will interact to
produce primary electrons; if they are too thick, the primary
radiation will be absorbed to a significant degree by the wall
and an attenuated primary-electron fluence will result.
• A primary electron produced at the outer surface of the wall is not
sufficiently energetic to pass through the wall into the cavity, the
ionization in the cavity begins to decrease. The wall thickness at
which just begins is the equilibrium wall thickness.

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 Exposure Dose Relationship
• The air-wall chamber, as the name implies, measures the energy
absorption in air.
• we are interested in the energy absorbed in tissue.
• Exposure Dose relationship can be established as:

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 29

 Absorbed Dose Measurement:
Bragg-Gray Principle
If a cavity ionization chamber is built with a wall material
whose radiation absorption properties are similar to those of
tissue, then, by taking advantage of the Bragg–Gray principle, an
instrument can be built to measure tissue dose directly.

Bragg-Gray Principle: The amount of ionization produced in a

small gas-filled cavity surrounded by a solid absorbing medium is
proportional to the energy absorbed by the solid.
dE/dm is related to energy absorbed per unit mass of wall (m) and
gas (g).

Practical application of this principle is that the gas cavity be small

enough relative to the mass of the solid absorber to leave the
angular and velocity distributions of the primary electrons
unchanged. 30
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 Bragg-Gray Principle (cont…)

• This requirement is fulfilled if the primary electrons lose only

a very small fraction of their energy in traversing the gas-
filled cavity.

• If the cavity is surrounded by a solid medium of proper

thickness to establish electronic equilibrium.

• Energy absorbed per unit mass of wall, dEm/dMm, is related to

the energy absorbed per unit mass of gas in the cavity, dEg/dMg,
by

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 31

 (cont…)

• Sm is the mass stopping power of the wall material and

• Sg is the mass stopping power of the gas.

Since the ionization per unit mass of gas is a direct measure of

dEg/dMg, can be rewritten as

Where,
ρm = Sm/Sg,
w = the mean energy dissipated in the production of an ion pair in the
gas, and
J = the number of ion pairs per unit mass of gas.
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Example 6.7: Calculate the absorbed dose rate from the following
data on a tissue-equivalent chamber with walls of equilibrium
thickness embedded within a phantom and exposed to 60Co gamma
rays for 10 minutes. The volume of the air cavity in the chamber is 1
cm3, the capacitance is 5 μF, and the gamma-ray exposure results
in a decrease of 72 V across the chamber.

Since 34 eV are expended per ion pair formed in air and since the
stopping power of tissue relative to air is 1.137 (Table 6-2), we have
from the Bragg–Gray relationship

= 0.0108 Gy = 10.8 mGy (1.08 rad = 1080 mrad).

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 Kerma
The kerma (kinetic energy released per unit mass) is a measure of
all the energy transferred from the uncharged particle (photon or
neutron) to primary ionizing particles per unit mass.
Absorbed dose is a measure of the energy absorbed per unit
mass.

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• Kerma decreases continuously with increasing depth in an
absorbing medium because of the continuous decrease in the
flux of the indirectly ionizing radiation.
• The absorbed dose is initially less at the surface of an
absorbing medium than below the surface. It increases as
electronic equilibrium is approached and the ionization density
increases due to the increasing number of secondary ions
produced by the primary ionizing particles.
• The maximum absorbed dose occurs at a depth approximately
equal to the maximum range of the primary ionizing particles.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 35

Example 6.8:
A 10-MeV photon penetrates into a 100-g mass and undergoes a
single interaction a pair-production interaction that leads to a
positron and an electron of 4.5 MeV each. Both charged particles
dissipate all their kinetic energy within the mass through ionization
and bremsstrahlung production. Three bremsstrahlung photons of
1.6, 1.4, and 2MeV each that are produced escape from the mass
before they interact. The positron, after expending all its kinetic
energy, interacts with an ambient electron within the mass and they
mutually annihilate one another to produce two photons of 0.51
MeV each, and both these photons escape before they can interact
within the mass. Calculate
(a) the kerma and
(b) the absorbed dose.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 36

 Source Strength: Specific Gamma-Ray Emission
• The radiation intensity from any given gamma-ray source is
used as a measure of the strength of the source.
• The gamma-radiation exposure rate from a point source of unit
activity at unit distance is called the specific gamma-ray
constant.
• The source strength may be calculated if the decay scheme of
the isotope is known.
• The gamma-radiation exposure level, in Sv/h (Gy/h air kerma),
is calculated by considering the energy absorbed per unit
mass of air at the specified distance from the 1-MBq point
source due to the photon flux at that distance.
• For a distance of 1 m from the point source, we have

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 Source Strength: Specific Gamma-Ray Emission

where
𝑋 = exposure rate, Sv/h (air kerma),
f = fraction of transformations that result in a photon of energy E ,
E = photon energy, MeV,
μ = linear energy absorption coefficient, m−1,
ρ = density of air, kg/m3, and
d = distance from the source, m.

For the 0.080-MeV gamma ray, at a distance of 1 m, we have

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Beta Radiation
Beta-particle absorption curve shows it to be approximately linear
when plotted on semilog paper. This means that the decrease in
beta intensity with increasing depth into an absorbing medium, for
depths less than the beta range, can be approximated by

where
ϕ = intensity at depth t,
ϕ0 = initial intensity, and
μβ = beta absorption coefficient.

If the maximum beta energy Em is given in MeV, then the beta

absorption coefficients for air and for tissue are

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Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 40
 Skin Contamination
• “skin dose”, or to “shallow dose”, we mean the dose to the
viable, actively growing basal cells in the basement membrane of
the skin.
• Tissue layer of nonliving cells whose nominal thickness is 0.007
g/cm2
• If the skin is contaminated with a radionuclide, we can calculate
the dose rate to the contaminated tissue by assuming that 50%
of the radiation goes down into the skin and 50% goes up
and leaves the skin.

• Dose contamination factor (DCF) = dose rate to cells/activity

per unit area.

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Example 6.10: A worker accidentally spills 3700 Bq (10 μCi) of a 32P
solution over an area of 10 cm2 on her skin. What is the dose rate to
the contaminated skin?
For 32P:
Em = 1.71 MeV and
Eave= 0.7 MeV.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 42

Dose from Surface Contamination
If we have a plane beta-emitting surface, such as a contaminated
area, then the surface dose rate may be easily calculated.

If the surface concentration is Ca (Bq/cm2), then we may assume that

50% of the betas go up from the surface and 50% go down into the
surface.

Furthermore, some of the downward directed betas are

backscattered. Under these conditions, the energy fluence rate at the
contaminated surface, ϕ0(E ), is

Assuming that 25% of the beta energy is backscattered, then f b = 1.25 then
we can write

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At a height d above the center of the contaminated surface, the
beta energy flux will be reduced by the thickness of air d and will be
closely approximated by

The energy fluence rate to the basal cells will be further reduced by
the shielding effect of 0.007 g/cm2 of nonviable surface skin.
Therefore, the energy flux ϕb to the basal cells is

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The dose rate to the basal cells in mGy/h, at a height d g/cm2 above a
contaminated area, is

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 45

Example 6.11: A solution of 32P
is spilled and it contaminates a
large surface to an areal concentration of 37 Bq/cm2. What is
the estimated beta dose rate to the skin at a height of 1 m
above the contaminated area? Temperature in the laboratory is
27◦C. (Neglect shielding by clothing.)

For 32P:
Range = (0.542 × 1.71) − 0.133 = 0.8 g/cm2 ,
Em = 1.71 MeV,
Eave = 0.7MeV,

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 46

Submersion Dose
Inside an infinite cloud of a radionuclide

rate of energy emission = rate of energy absorption.

In an infinite cloud containing C Bq/m3 of a beta emitter whose

mean beta energy is 𝐸 MeV,

the dose rate is

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Since the skin of a person in an infinite medium is irradiated from
one side only, and since soft tissue absorbs about 10% more
energy per kilogram than air does, the dose rate to the basal cells
of the skin in a semi-infinite medium is

the beta dose to the skin of a person immersed in a large cloud of

concentration C Bq/m3:

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Example 6.12: Calculate the dose rate to the skin of a person
immersed in a large cloud of 85Kr at a concentration of 37
kBq/m3 (10−6 μCi/mL).

Krypton-85 is a pure beta emitter that is transformed to 85Rb by the

emission of a beta particle whose maximum energy is 0.672 MeV
and whose average energy is 0.246 MeV. The tissue absorption
coefficient is calculated

and the skin dose is

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Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 50
 Internally Deposited Radionuclides
• Internally deposited refers to radionuclides in dispersed from
(dusts, gases, suspensions, solutions) that enter the body
thorough inhalation, ingestion, by some form of injection or by
skin absorption. Examples: Fe-55, Ga-67
• Radiation dose from internal emitters cannot be measured
directly; it can only be calculated. The calculated dose is
based on both physical and biological factors.
• The physical factors include the
I. type
II. energy of the radiation and
III. the radiological half-life.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 51

 Internally Deposited Radionuclides cont…
• The biological factors include
I. the distribution of the radioisotope within the body and
II. the kinetic behavior, such as
a. absorption rates,
b. turnover rates, and
c. retention times in the various organs and tissues.
• The calculation of the absorbed dose from internally deposited
radioisotopes follows directly from the definition of the gray.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 52

 Internally Deposited Radionuclides (cont…)
• For an infinitely large medium containing a uniformly distributed
radionuclide, the concentration of absorbed energy must be
equal to the concentration of energy emitted.

• The energy absorbed per unit tissue mass per

transformation is called the specific effective energy (SEE).

• For the case of alpha and most beta radiations, the SEE is
simply the average energy of the radiation divided by the
mass of the tissue in which it is distributed:

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 53

 Internally Deposited Radionuclides (cont…)
• The effective energy is the monoenergetic photon energy which
produces the same first half value layer in a given material as the
x-ray beam.

• Half-value layer (HVL) is the width of a material required to

reduce the air kerma of an x-ray or gamma ray to half its original
value. This applies to narrow beam geometry only. With broad-
beam geometry, a greater amount of scatter will reach the
detector, falsely overestimating the degree of attenuation.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 54

Example 6.14: Calculate the daily dose rate to a testis that weighs 18
g and has 6660 Bq of 35S uniformly distributed throughout the organ.

Sulfur is a pure beta emitter whose maximum-energy beta particle is

0.1674 MeV and whose average energy is 0.0488 MeV.

Given, Eave= 0.0488 MeV, q = 6660 Bq, m = 0.018 kg, t = 1day= 86400sec

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 Half-Life
There are three half-lives that are important when
considering the use of radioactive drugs for both diagnostic
and therapeutic purposes.
• Physical half-life,
• Biological half-life, and
• Effective half-life
While both the physical and biological half-lives are
important since they relate directly to the disappearance of
radioactivity from the body by two separate pathways
(radioactive decay, biological clearance), there is no half-life
as important in humans as the effective half-life.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 56

 Physical Half-Life
Physical half-life is defined as the period of time required to
reduce the radioactivity level of a source to exactly one half
its original value due solely to radioactive decay.

The physical half-life is designated tphys or more commonly

t1/2. There are a few things to note about the tphys :
• The tphys can be measured directly by counting a
sample at 2 different points in time and then calculating
what the half-life is.

• For example, if activity decreases from 100% to 25% in 24

hours, then the half-life is 12 hours since a decrease from
100% to 50% to 25% implies that 2 half-lives have elapsed.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 57

 Physical Half-Life
• The range of half-lives is boundless. There are isotopes with
half-lives of nsec, μsec, msec, sec, hr, min, days, weeks,
months, years, centuries, millennia, and even as long as a billion
years (half-life of K-40 = 1.28 x 109 years). Most of those time
units would not be very useful for diagnostic or therapeutic
studies and, in fact, all commercially available isotopes range
from 75 sec (Rb-82) to Sr-89 (50.5 days) with all others in
between those two values.

• The physical half-life is unaffected by anything that we

humans can do to the isotope. High or low pressure or high or
low temperature has no effect on the decay rate of a
radioisotope. Perhaps taking the isotope to absolute 0 or
within a degree of that temperature would affect the decay
rate.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 58

 Biological Half-Life
Biological Half-life is defined as the period of time required to
reduce the amount of a drug in an organ or the body to exactly
one half its original value due solely to biological elimination.
It is typically designated tbiol or tb.

There are a few things to note about the tbiol :

• For radioactive compounds, we have to calculate the tbiol
because the mass of the isotope is usually on the nanogram
scale and, when distributed throughout the body, and especially
in the target organ, concentrations are in the picogram/ml range,
much too small to measure directly.
• For non-radioactive compounds, we can measure the tbiol
directly. For example, assuming that a person is not allergic to
penicillin, we could give 1,000 mg of the drug and then measure
the amount present in the blood pool and in the urine since we
administered such a large amount of the drug..
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Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley
 Biological Half-Life
• tbiol is affected by many external factors. Perhaps the two
most important are hepatic and renal function. If kidneys are
not working well, we would expect to see a high background
activity on our scans. Also important is level of hydration. A
poorly hydrated patient, even with normal renal function, will
have a high background activity since limited urine is being
produced, making it difficult to eliminate isotope that has not
localized in the target organ.
• Each individual organ in the body has its own tbiol and the
whole body also has a tbiol representing the weighted
average of the tbiol of all internal organs and the blood pool.
• All drugs have a tbiol, not just radioactive ones. Drug package
inserts often refer to the half-time of clearance of a drug from the
blood pool or through the kidneys.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 60

 Biological Half-Life
• Since the whole body has a tbiol representing the weighted
average of the tbiol of all internal organs, it will almost never
equal that of an internal organ.
• It is a fallacy that physical and biological half-lives can never
equal each other. Consider Tc-99m MAA (macroaggregated
albumin), for which both tphys and tbiol are equal to 6 hours.
• Consider two extreme cases: for Tc-99m Sulfur Colloid, the tbiol
is considered to be infinitely long; the tbiol of Xe-133 gas in the
lungs is measured in sec.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 61

 Effective Half-Life
Effective Half-Life is defined as the period of time required to
reduce the radioactivity level of an internal organ or of the whole body
to exactly one half its original value due to both elimination and
decay. It is designated teff or te .
There are a few things to note about the teff :
• The teff can be measured directly. For example, one can hold a
detection device 1 m from the patient’s chest and count the patient
multiple times until the reading decreases to half of the initial
reading. The patient is permitted to use the rest room between
readings as needed, so both elimination and decay are taking
place. The half-life being measured in this case is the teff .
• The range of teff typically varies from sec to hr.
• teff is affected by the same external factors that affect tbiol since teff
is dependent upon tbiol.
Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 62
 Effective Half-Life
Mathematical Relationship
There are three special cases that help to clarify the concept of
effective half-life:
• If tphys>>> tbiol then teff ~ tbiol

• e.g., for a Xe-133 for pulmonary ventilation study, where

tphys = 5.3 days and
tbiol = 15 sec,
the study is over within a few minutes.
It did not matter whether the Xe half-life was 5 hr, 5 days, or 5 weeks.
They are all so long compared to the biological half-life that the
effective half-life equals the biological half-life.

so... teff = 15 sec

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 63
 Effective Half-Life
Effective Half-Life is defined as the period of time required to
reduce the radioactivity level of an internal organ or of the whole
body to exactly one half its original value due to both
elimination and decay.
In making this calculation, two factors must be considered, namely:
1. Radioactive decay of the radionuclide and
2. Biological elimination rate of the radionuclide.
Biological elimination follows first-order kinetics. In this case,
the equation for the quantity of radioactive material within an organ
at any time t after deposition of a quantity Q0 is given by

where λR is the radioactive decay constant and

λB is the biological elimination constant.

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 64

The two exponentials may be combined

where λR is the radioactive decay constant and

λB is the biological elimination constant.
λE is the effective elimination constant.

The effective half-life is then

From the relationship among λE, λR, and λB, we have

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 65

In Example 6.14: for 35S, TR = 87.1 days. TB, the biological
half-life in the testis, is reported to be 623 days. The
effective half-life in the test is,
The effective half-life is

We know, effective half-life is

• The effective half-life of 35S in the testis is less than either the
radiological or the biological half-lives.
• This must be so because the quantity of a radionuclide in the body is
continually decreasing due to radioactive decay and biological
elimination.
• For this reason, the effective half-life can never be greater than the
shorter of either the biological or radiological half-life.
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Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley
A radiopharmaceutical has a biological half-life of 4.00 hr
and an effective half-life of 3.075 hr. What isotope was
used?
The effective half-life is

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 67

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Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley
Total Dose: Dose Commitment

Prof. Dr. Afroza Shelley 69