Chest wall thickness measurements: the alternative approach extended for 241Am

The Human Monitoring Laboratory has extended the technique of determining the chest wall thickness of an individual using information from the spectrum produced by internally deposited radionuclides. The technique has been investigated both theoretically and practically using germanium detectors and the Lawrence Livermore Torso Phantom. The phantom was used with a lung set containing homogeneously distributed 241Am. Chest wall thicknesses were varied by using a series of muscle equivalent overlay plates that gave a range of 1.6 cm to 3.9 cm thickness. It was found that a 3-cm chest wall thickness can be estimated to within 18%. Using a spectral addition technique 1 kBq was estimated to be the "practical" lower limit of activity for this method.