Evaluation of the behavior of a 180cc ionization chamber under different environmental conditions

Abstract

The use of ionizing radiation for medical purposes has been a major advance for society due to the numerous possibilities of use for the treatment and diagnosis of diseases. On the other hand, knowledge about the damage caused by the biological effects of ionizing radiation requires continuous improvement of diagnostic radiology quality control. Radiation detector equipment is used to measure radiation levels emitted from natural or artificial sources. For convenience and accuracy, among the most widely used detectors are ionization chambers. Especially outdoors, weather factors can affect the behavior of these detectors at the time of measurement, but Brazilian law recommends only calibrating these measuring instruments in a traceable laboratory every two years to ensure their reliability. The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of an ionization chamber used in radioprotection measurements in diagnostic radiology equipment, considering climatic variations in different regions of Brazil. For this, a system was developed to simulate the environmental conditions found for the temperature and humidity parameters at the moment of the clinical measurements, allowing to estimate the influence of these factors on the obtained values.