The MIRD perspective 1999. Medical Internal Radiation Dose Committee.

The MIRD schema is a general approach for medical internal radiation dosimetry. Although the schema has traditionally been used for organ dosimetry, it is also applicable to dosimetry at the suborgan, voxel, multicellular and cellular levels. The MIRD pamphlets that follow in this issue and in coming issues, as well as the recent monograph on cellular dosimetry, demonstrate the flexibility of this approach. Furthermore, these pamphlets provide new tools for radionuclide dosimetry applications, including the dynamic bladder model, S values for small structures within the brain (i.e., suborgan dosimetry), voxel S values for constructing three-dimensional dose distributions and dose-volume histograms and techniques for acquiring quantitative distribution and pharmacokinetic data.