On the calculation of effective dose to children and adolescents

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Abstract
Various sets of tissue weighting factors have been derived for the calculation of the effective dose to children (age groups 0 - 9 and 10 - 19 years) in order to assess the detriment caused by radiation, e.g. in diagnostic radiology. The risk estimates for children have been taken from the recent UNSCEAR 1994 Report. The paper presents four sets of weighting factors, two including and two not including the risk of hereditary effects. The effective dose is calculated for some investigations common in paediatric diagnostic radiology. Although the derived weighting factors for children and adolescents differ from those for the whole population, the effective dose value was not dramatically different. When using weighting factors derived for children and adolescents, taking into account both the risk of somatic and hereditary effects, as well as severity, the effective dose differed seldom more than 10% from that calculated with the ICRP weighting factors. Thus, the ICRP weighting factors could also be used for children and adolescents. Age-dependent risk coefficients should, however, be used.

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