Evaluation of in vivo low-dose mouse irradiation system

This study aims to develop a facility that can irradiate subjects with a desired low dose, which can be used to assess the biological effects of low-dose radiation. We develop a single-occupancy mouse-cage and shelf system with adjustable geometric parameters, such as the distances and angles of the cages relative to the collimator. We assess the irradiation-level accuracy using two measurement methods. First, we calculate the angle and distance of each mouse cage relative to the irradiator. We employ a Monte Carlo n-particle simulation for all of the cages at a given distance from the radiation source to calculate the air kerma and the relative absorbed dose in the in-house designed shelving system; these are found to be approximately 0.108 and 0.109 Gy, respectively. Second, we measure the relative absorbed dose using glass dosimeters inserted directly into the heads and bodies of the mice. For a conventional irradiation system, the irradiation measurements show a maximum discrepancy of 42% between the absorbed and desired doses, whereas a discrepancy of only 6% from the desired dose is found for the designed mouse apartment system. In addition, multi-mouse cages are shown to yield to significantly greater differences in the mouse head and body relative absorbed doses, compared to the discrepancies found for single-occupancy cages in the conventional irradiation system. Our findings suggest that the in-house shelving system has greater reliability for the biological analysis of the effects of low-dose radiation.