title: Uncertainty Quantification in Internal Dose Calculations for Seven Selected Radiopharmaceuticals.
abstract: Dose coefficients of radiopharmaceuticals have been published by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the MIRD Committee but without information concerning uncertainties. The uncertainty information of dose coefficients is important, for example, to compare alternative diagnostic methods and choose the method that causes the lowest patient exposure with appropriate and comparable diagnostic quality. For the study presented here, an uncertainty analysis method was developed and used to calculate the uncertainty of the internal doses of 7 common radiopharmaceuticals.
  
  
  METHODS
  On the basis of the generalized schema of dose calculation recommended by the ICRP and MIRD Committee, an analysis based on propagation of uncertainty was developed and applied for 7 radiopharmaceuticals. The method takes into account the uncertainties contributed from pharmacokinetic models and the so-called S values derived from several voxel computational phantoms previously developed at Helmholtz Zentrum München. Random and Latin hypercube sampling techniques were used to sample parameters of pharmacokinetic models and S values, and the uncertainties of absorbed doses and effective doses were calculated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The uncertainty factors (square root of the ratio between 97.5th and 2.5th percentiles) for organ-absorbed doses are in the range of 1.1-3.3. Uncertainty values of effective doses are lower in comparison to absorbed doses, the maximum value being approximately 1.4. The ICRP reference values showed a deviation comparable to the effective dose calculated in this study.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A general statistical method was developed for calculating the uncertainty of absorbed doses and effective doses for 7 radiopharmaceuticals. The dose uncertainties can be used to further identify the most important parameters in the dose calculation and provide reliable dose coefficients for risk analysis of the patients in nuclear medicine.
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Medical Radiation Physics and Diagnostics, Helmholtz Zentrum München-German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany vladimir.spielmann@helmholtz-muenchen.de wli@helmholtz-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Spielmann
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Medical Radiation Physics and Diagnostics, Helmholtz Zentrum München-German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany vladimir.spielmann@helmholtz-muenchen.de wli@helmholtz-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Wei Bo
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Medical Radiation Physics and Diagnostics, Helmholtz Zentrum München-German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zankl
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Medical Radiation Physics and Diagnostics, Helmholtz Zentrum München-German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Oeh
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Medical Radiation Physics and Diagnostics, Helmholtz Zentrum München-German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hoeschen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011835:Radiation Protection; D011874:Radiometry / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals / Q000009:adverse effects; D018570:Risk Assessment; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals
keywords: internal dosimetry; nuclear medicine; pharmacokinetic model; uncertainty quantification; voxel phantom