Radiological risk assessment for high dose rate brachytherapy with expert judgment and statistical inference

Abstract

A probabilistic risk assessment was performed for the workers in and the other persons around the HDRbrachytherapy facilities. To overcome the scarcity of experience data for the variables affecting exposure potential,Delphi surveys were applied to complement the available data. Bayesian inference was also employed to refine thedistributions of variables. The radiological risks were evaluated by using the two-diensional Monte Carlo analysis toget better insights taking into account both uncertainty and variability. By comparing the results with those of simpleprobabilistic risk analysis, the merit of the approach taken in this study was exemplified.