Experimental simulation of A-bomb gamma ray spectra: revisited.

It has been reported recently that the A-bomb gamma ray spectra received by the colon of the average Japanese survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be experimentally simulated using a hospital-based Philips SL15 linear accelerator. The simulated A-bomb gamma radiation may be used in radiobiology experiments to determine, amongst other things, the biological effectiveness of the A-bomb gamma radiation. However, in that study, the electron beams from the linear accelerator were poorly defined and photon contamination was ignored. In the study reported here, a Varian Clinac 2100C linear accelerator has been used for the same purpose but with photon contamination included in better defined output electron beams. It is found that the A-bomb gamma radiation can still be matched to an acceptable degree (<10%). The cause of the slightly poorer fit was due mainly to the different ranges of energies available from the linear accelerators used. The absorbed dose received by model breasts was also estimated in this study for the same situations as in the previous study. The ratio of the breast to colon doses was found to be only (3.9 +/- 4.0)% low compared with the expected values of 1.17 and 1.16 for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. These results provide further confirmation of the acceptability of the simple cylindrically symmetrical body models employed in these studies to represent the average Japanese survivor. Copyright 2004 Oxford University Press