Voxel anthropomorphic phantoms: Review of models used for ionising radiation dosimetry

Abstract

Computational anthropomorphic phantoms have k e n used since the 1970s for dosimetric calculations. Realistic geometries are required for this operation, resulting in the development of ever more accurate phantoms. Voxel phantoms, comisting of a set of smail-volume elements, appeared towards the end of the 1980s, and significantly improved on the original mathematical models. Voxel phantoms are models of the human body, obtained using compnted tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance images (MRI). These phantoms are an extremely accurate representation of the human anatomy. This article provides a review of the literatnre available on the development of these phantoms and their applications in ionising radiation dosimetry. The bibliographical stndy has shown that there is a wide range of phantoms, covering various characteristics of the general population in terms of sex, age or morphology, and that they are used in applications relating ta al1 aspects of ionising radiation. © 2004 EDP Sciences.