USTUR Americium-241 Bone Phantom
The United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR) Americium Bone Phantom is a unique skeletal phantom constructed from one half of a human skeleton kindly arranged for donation to the USTUR by a former nuclear worker known to have had an americium-241 intake. One half of the skeleton was radiochemically analyzed (total content for entire skeleton, assuming bilateral symmetry of activity of 119.1 nCi) and the other half, minus some bones used for other purposes, was cast into ICRU muscle-equivalent tissue-substitute phantoms.
PHANTOM ID #: PL-901
Radionuclide content: 241Am,
representing ½ of a 119.1 nCi total skeletal burden
Traceability: LANL 243Am, 242Pu tracers/238Pu
NBS standards
The USTUR bone phantom consists of 4 sections: a head (skull) phantom, a chest/torso phantom, a left arm phantom, and a left leg phantom. With the exception of the skull, each labeled skeleton half is the left side. Use of each phantom section may require "double" counts, one for each side of the bilateral symmetry, in order to compensate for the unlabelled skeleton halves. According to unpublished information from one participant in the fabrication of the torso phantom, the linear average for the CWT over the thorax region is 14.23 mm for the left lateral and 14.80 mm for the right lateral.
Composition: The phantoms are composed of 100% ICRU muscle-equivalent polyurethane-based tissue substitute, over both actual and simulated bone.
Publications:
Detailed analyses of the activity distribution of the radiochemically analyzed bone is found in:
- Breitenstein, BD; CE Newton; HT Norris; KR Heid; B Robinson; HE Palmer; GA Rieksts; HB Spitz; JF McInroy; HA Boyd; BC Eutsler; D Romero; PW Durbin; CT Schmidt. 1985. "The U.S. Transuranium Registry Report on the 241Am Count of a Whole Body," Health Physics Journal 49(4) 559-648.
- Hickman, DP and N Cohen. 1988. "Reconstruction of a Human Skull Calibration Phantom Using Bone Sections From an 241Am Exposure Case," Health Physics Journal 55(1) 59-65.
- Lynch, TP. 1988. Distribution of Plutonium and Americium in Four Human Skeletons. M.S. thesis, University of Washington, Seattle.
| Phantom ID# | Radionuclide | Calibration Date | Calibrated Activity (nCi) | ± | One SD† | Activity (nCi) on 01Jan2007 | Order Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL-901 arm | 241Am | 2/80 | 7.74 | ± | 0.09 | 7.41 | PNNL |
| PL-901 leg | 241Am | 2/80 | 27.97 | ± | 0.3 | 26.79 | PNNL |
| PL-901 skull | 241Am | 2/80 | 16.8 | ± | 0.2 | 16.1 | PNNL |
| PL-901 torso | 241Am | 2/80 | 19.8 | ± | 0.5 | 19.0 | PNNL |
†The standard deviation, SD, is the 67% confidence interval of the sample count due to errors in net count rates, counter efficiencies, and the spike activity of 243Am.
| Phantom ID# | Radionuclide | Calibration Date | Calibrated Activity (kBq) | ± | One SD† | Activity (kBq) on 01Jan2007 | Order Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL-901 arm | 241Am | 2/80 | 0.286 | ± | 0.09 | 0.274 | PNNL |
| PL-901 leg | 241Am | 2/80 | 1.035 | ± | 0.03 | 0.991 | PNNL |
| PL-901 skull | 241Am | 2/80 | 0.622 | ± | 0.02 | 0.595 | PNNL |
| PL-901 torso | 241Am | 2/80 | 0.733 | ± | 0.5 | 0.702 | PNNL |
†The standard deviation, SD, is the 67% confidence interval of the sample count due to errors in net count rates, counter efficiencies, and the spike activity of 243Am.
PL-901 skull and torso
NOTE: The listed activities for the skull phantom and torso phantom are twice what is in the actual phantom, for the purposes of performing "mirror" dual counts to correct for the unequal detection efficiencies. The skull phantom consists of one-half (bilateral slice), left half radioactive bones. The torso phantom consists of the left-half radioactive bones and even-numbered vertebrae. Both the skull and the torso phantoms include non-radioactive bone on the right halves.