You want software, man, we LOVE software. Why do a lot of hard work by hand, with spreadsheets, etc., and possibly make errors, when you get a computer to do the work for you? We have a number of software codes available here, some are free, some are commercial.

MIRDOSE and OLINDA/EXM (Nuclear medicine internal dose)
The Visual Monte Carlo Program (External dose Monte Carlo simulator)
The VARSKIN code (Skin dose)
Dynamic Bladder Model code (MIRD Pamphlet 14)
Virtual Cell Radiobiology Software


MIRDOSE and OLINDA/EXM

The MIRDOSE software has been popular for a number of years for calculating internal radiation dose estimates for radionuclides used in nuclear medicine. The program has phantom libraries which permit the calculation of these doses for individuals of different age and size and for women at different stages of pregnancy. The program did not include libraries of doses for nuclear medicine radiopharmaceuticals. The user needed to calculate the input data that described the biokinetics of a given radiopharmaceutical (from her own animal or human data) or find them in the literature. Kinetic models for different radiopharmaceuticals change often, as new information becomes available and as models change and (hopefully) improve. MIRDOSE was simply a tool which permits the calculation of radiation dose estimates, using the MIRD technique, once the kinetic model was defined.

The personal computer code OLINDA/EXM, which is an acronym standing for Organ Level INternal Dose Assessment/EXponential Modeling, was designed as an update to MIRDOSE. Just like for MIRDOSE, users will enter results of kinetic models into the code, which uses them with models of the human body which have been established in the literature to calculate estimates of the radiation dose to all of the organs and the body. The dose factors used in OLINDA are those found on the RADAR page on model dose factors; the technical basis for the factors appeared in the Health Physics Journal (85(3):294-310, 2003). In the EXM portion of the code, however, users can actually perform kinetic analyses, fitting sums of exponentials to data gathered in animal or human studies. The physical models that the code uses are stylized approximations of the human body of idealized average individuals (adult male, adult female, children of various ages, and women at three stages of pregnancy).

The majority of the applications of this code are theoretical applications involving diagnostic applications of radiopharmaceuticals. With the increasing interest in recent years in the use of radiopharmaceuticals in therapy, however, there is an interest in using the code to estimate doses to organs of patients receiving therapy, either retrospectively or perhaps prospectively. Such applications led the US Food and Drug Administration to initially raise concerns about the status of the MIRDOSE software (J Nucl Med, Newsline, Vol. 41, No. 6, June 2000, 13N) possibly being a 'medical device', and this has led to the seeking of a premarket notification (510K) for OLINDA/EXM. The clearance for version 1 was sought and was received from the FDA on June 15, 2004 (K033960). Click here to see some sample screens from the software. The code was released by Vanderbilt University and was widely distributed. Version 1 (and 1.1) were withdrawn from the market and is replaced with Version 2, which contains new generation, voxel-based realistic human phantoms based on ICRP 89 reference organ masses. This is being distributed by Hermes Medical. Click here to go to the OLINDA/EXM order page.

The Visual Monte Carlo Program (External dose Monte Carlo simulator)

VMC is a computer program that simulates the irradiation of the human body by external sources. It uses a voxel phantom produced at Yale University and the Monte Carlo technique to simulate the emission of photons by a point, ground, cloud source or X ray source. It then transports the photons through the human body phantom and calculates the dose to each body region.

The mathematical phantom

For the simulation of the human body, a voxel phantom with a format of 488 "slices" each of 192 x 96 picture elements was used. The size of each voxel is 3.6 mm x 3.6 mm x 3.6 mm and there are 8.994.816 million voxels in the phantom. The voxel phantom is derived from a whole body magnetic resonance image (MRI) scan and was obtained from the Yale University voxel phantom library which is maintained by I. George Zubal, Ph.D. The voxel phantoms in this library are freeware, and may be obtained through George Zubal at George.Zubal@Yale.Edu. The Yale voxel phantom was modified at the IRD so as to maintain only the tissues relevant for the calculation of the effective dose, as defined in ICRP 60.

The Monte Carlo program

VMC is designed specifically for voxel geometries and has an extensive graphic output. It is written in Visual Basic. As the energies of the radionuclides of interest for external dose calculations during most occupational exposure or accident situations fall in the range of 0.02 - 1.5 MeV, only photoelectric and Compton interactions were considered. The Monte Carlo code uses the RANMAR random number generator, with a period of approximately 10^30 random numbers.

System requirements

Visual MC requires Windows 95, 98, or higher version to run. The computer must have at least 64 Mbytes of RAM to run. The quicker the CPU, the faster the results will be obtained. Contact John Hunt (john.hunt@chello.at) for more information about this code. Dr. Hunt is currently releasing a version to the general public for use and comment. Download it by clicking here. The code comes with a standard disclaimer.

VARSKIN

VARSKIN Mod 2 calculates the radiation dose (gamma and beta) to skin from radioactive contamination of skin or protective clothing. It has its own web page in the External dose section of the RADAR web site.

Dynamic Bladder Model code (MIRD Pamphlet 14)

The MIRD Committee developed an analysis of how urinary bladder dose changes for a number of radiopharmaceuticals as a function of initial bladder volume, urine flow rates, and bladder voiding schedule. The analysis was much more realistic than the usual bladder dose calculations (such as are done in MIRDOSE and OLINDA/EXM) using a fixed, 200 ml, bladder volume (in the adult) and a constant voiding schedule. Their analysis made it possible to evaluate, theoretically at least, what would be the optimum time for the first bladder void after administration of different radiopharmaceuticals, and how the dose pattern changed with changes in these various variables. They then developed this into an interactive PC-based code, which will be available for download from this site soon.

Virtual Cell Radiobiology Software

The Virtual Cell (VC) is a code developed by Dr. R. Stewart, now at Purdue, and incorporates a multiscale system of models to simulate early events and processes involved in the pathogenesis and treatment of cancer. The main biological endpoints of interest in the VC are cell death and neoplastic transformation. The VC also provides information about the formation and repair of DNA damage and some information about chromosome aberration yields, the induction of genomic instability, cell cycle kinetics, and the probability of tumor eradication following radiation therapy.