A virtually nondestructive EPR technique accounting for diagnostic X-rays

We have implemented the method proposed by Aldrich and Pass (Aldrich, J.E., Pass, B., 1988. Determining radiation exposure from nuclear accidents and atomic tests using dental enamel. Health Phys. 54, 469-471.) to measure bot h the interior and exterior portions of a tooth in order to determine the d iagnostic X-ray component of the total dose in the teeth. This was done usi ng a modified nondestructive approach of Haskell et al. (Haskell, E.H., Hay es, R.B., Romanyukha, A.A., Kenner, G.H., 2000. Preliminary report on the d evelopment of a virtually nondestructive additive dose technique for EPR do simetry Appl. Radiat Isot. 52, 1055-1070.) given in Hayes et al. (Hayes, R. B., Haskell, E.H., Barrus, J.K., Kenner, G.H., Romanyukha, A.A., 2000. Accu rate EPR radiosensitivity calibration using small sample masses. Nucl. Inst r. Meth. A. 441, 535-550). Here only 5% of the total tooth enamel sample fr om an enamel crown was used for individual sample sensitivity calibration. A cavity response correction for the low mass samples was also used (Hayes et al., 2000). The teeth were American wisdom teeth having unknown doses ap plied by the IAEA in the range of 0 to 1 Gy as part of the second internati onal intercomparison (Wieser, A., Mehta, K., Amira, S., Aragno, S., Bercea, S., Brik, A., Bugai, A., Callens, F., Chumak, V., Ciesielski, B., Debuyst, R., Dubovsky, S., Duliu, O., Fattibene, P., Haskell, E., Hayes, R., Ignati ev, E., Ivannikov, A., Kirillov, V., Kleschenko, E., Nakamura, N., Nathe, M ., Nowak, J., Onori, S., Pass, B., Pivovarov, S., Romanyukha, A., Scherbina , O., Shames, A., Sholom, S., Skvortsov, V., Stepanenko, V., Tikounov, D., Toyoda, S., 2000. The 2nd international intercomparison on EPR tooth dosime try. Radiat. Meas. in press). Final dose reconstruction estimates of the IA EA applied values showed a very high correlation (R = 0.996). The approxima te excess dose measured on the outside of the teeth relative to the inside was 49+/-35 mGy which is attributed to the diagnostic X-ray exposure given to the America wisdom teeth prior to extraction. The method used showed onl y a small dependence on the accelerating voltage of the X-ray source. (C) 2 000 Elsevier Science Ltd. ALL rights reserved.