Development of Neonate Phantom for Estimating Medical Exposure

INTRODUCTION The recent progress in medical technology causes the decreases in the mortality rate of neonates with their birth weight less than 1,000g. Many X-ray examinations of neonates in NICU are usually done for various body size. The Frequencies of radiation exposure per neonate are high compared to general diagnosis for adults. It is important for radiation protection to consider that the radiation sensitivity of neonates is higher than that of adults. Especially, red bone marrow, which is one of high sensitive organs, is spread in their body almost uniformly. Although, for medical radiation protection, the estimation of neonatal dose is needed in order to optimize X-ray examinations, few quantitative studies have been reported (1,2). In addition, few neonatal physical and mathematical phantoms have been reported in estimating medical exposure. For this reason, a physical neonatal phantom was developed for estimating medical exposure in NICU. The mathematical phantom was also made for computer simulation to calculate doses.