Impact of new operational dosimetric quantities on individual monitoring services.

The new operational dosimetric quantities framework, proposed in the report ICRU95, has stimulated the scientific community to start investigations aiming at assessing its impact on radiation protection practices. As part of this effort, the present study describes an inter-comparison exercise among Individual Monitoring Services (IMS) on passive whole body dosimetry. The intercomparison is performed in terms of both the existing Hp(10) and Hp(0.07) and proposed Hp, allowing an evaluation of the actions that may be necessary to adapt dosimetry systems to the proposed quantities. Results from the tested IMSs indicate that a simple modifications of the detector response function, or dose calculation algorithm, permits to obtain results within the acceptance limits. However, these approaches are not sufficient to give a level of performance comparable to that achieved in terms of H(10). This may require a modification of dosemeter design.