Use of voxelized thyroid models to develop a physical-anthropomorphic phantom for 3D printing

Abstract

The monitoring of the intake os radionuclides by workers and public individuals, using in vivo measurements, requires the application of calibration factors obtained with physical-anthropomorphic phantoms. In the case of 131I, the lack of anatomical realism of the phantom might impair the quality and reliability of the monitoring result. Thus, in order to develop a thyroid phantom by means of 3D printing, images of the voxelized models provided in ICRP 110 were used. The superposition of the images of the original model and the treated model demonstrate the maintenance of morphological characteristics. Therefore, image manipulation techniques applied in this work aimed to smooth the sharp angles of the original image and the prototype printing were considered effective.