Intercomparison on measurements of the quantity personal dose equivalent, HpHp(0.07), by extremity ring dosimeters in medical fields

In the framework of the CONRAD project, the EURADOS WG9 organized an intercomparison of extremity dosimeters that are used in a variety of medical fields. The overall objective of the intercomparison was to verify the performance of different extremity ring dosimeters to measure the quantity HpHp(0.07) in photon and beta reference fields as well as in realistic fields in interventional radiology (IR) and nuclear medicine. The selection of the participating services has been done in a way to have a good representation of different types of detectors, filter materials and filter thicknesses that are used in Europe. All the irradiations have been performed on the ISO rod phantom. For the reference fields, the reference values of HpHp(0.07) have been determined by the irradiation laboratories with traceability to primary calibrations, in agreement with the relevant standards. For the realistic fields, the reference values have been obtained with the aid of Monte Carlo simulations. The vast majority of the services fulfill the accuracy requirements according to the European Technical Recommendations for the photon and realistic IR fields. However, only a limited number of services fulfill these requirements in all tested beta irradiation configurations.