Dose estimation software for radiation biodosimetry.

Cytogenetic analysis of chromosome damage in blood lymphocytes is widely used for radiation biodosimetry. Mathematical and statistical analysis is extremely important for accurate assessment of the data and results, and there are a number of classical statistical methods which are routinely employed. However, the large number of different mathematical techniques, the dependence of the models on certain statistical principles, and the complexity of some of the methods can lead to errors in data analysis and thus misinterpretation of results. Cytogenetic dose estimation software has been developed to address these problems by simplifying mathematical and statistical analysis of the cytogenetic data. "Dose Estimate" is a collection of mathematical and statistical methods based on the cytogenetic methods that are used for biodosimetry at the Health Protection Agency and elsewhere in the radiation cytogenetics community. Details of the biological and mathematical tools incorporated into the software are presented. Preliminary testing has been carried out, and the results demonstrate the accuracy and usefulness of the software in its current form. Proposals for improving the software through implementation of recently published Bayesian analysis techniques for cytogenetics are also outlined. An evaluation copy of the software is available on request from the authors.