Organisation of a European Interlaboratory Comparison on Whole Body Counting

Description

The objective of this project is to assess the implementation of the individual monitoring requirements in EU Member States based on in-vivo measurements and receive an overview of the performance of in-vivo measurements using whole body counters. The contractor will perform the following tasks: — design, development, fabrication and testing of a whole body phantom add (i.e representative of a human body in terms of size/shape/matrix/density) with a radionuclide content including appropriate gamma emitting radionuclides of certified radioactivity content, — establishment of contacts with European laboratories performing whole body counting ensuring an appropriate geographical coverage in the EU, — development of a reporting template to include information on whole body counter characteristics (type/size/number of detectors, counting geometry, positioning of detectors relative to the subject, calibration protocol, quality assurance, quality control, accreditation), shielding characteristics (materials and thicknesses), counting characteristics (number of measurements, counting time, detector to phantom distance), measurements results (calculated radioactivity and associated uncertainties) and estimated measurement precision and Minimum Detectable Activity (MDA) for the radionuclides contained in the phantom, — organisation and management of a measurement campaign involving participating laboratories over the EU (transport to and measurements of the phantom by the participating whole body counters), — collection of the filled reporting templates and evaluation of the reported measurement results, — organisation of a workshop to present results and exchange experience, — preparation of a publishable report summarising the organisation of the intercomparison exercise and presenting the participating whole body counters, their characteristics, an overview of their counting precisions and MDAs, the applied counting configurations, and the evaluation of the reported results.