Limitation of individual internal exposure by consideration of the confidence interval in routine personal dosimetry at the Chernobyl Sarcophagus.

In view of the probabilistic nature and very wide uncertainty of internal exposure assessment, its deterministic ('precise') assessment does not protect against not exceeding established reference levels or even the dose limits for a particular individual. Minimising such potential risks can be achieved by setting up a sufficiently wide confidence interval for an expected dose distribution instead of its average ('best' estimate) value, and by setting the limit at the 99% fractile level. The ratio of the 99% level and the mean ('best' estimate) is referred to as the safety coefficient. It is shown for the typical radiological conditions inside the Chernobyl Sarcophagus that the safety coefficient corresponding to the 99% fractile of the expected internal dose distribution varies within the range from 5 to 10. The maintenance of minimum uncertainty and sufficient sensitivity of the indirect dosimetry method requires measurement of individual daily urinary excretion of 239Pu at a level of at least 4 x 10(-5) Bq. For the purpose of reducing the uncertainty of individual internal dose assessment and making dosimetric methods workable. it is suggested that the results of workplace monitoring are combined with the results of periodic urinary and faecal bioassay measurements.