A new phantom for use in whole body counters: a Monte Carlo design project.

A new phantom for calibration or performance testing of whole body counters has been conceptualized. The validity of the design has been validated by Monte Carlo simulations. The simulations have compared the expected counting efficiencies for the new design to those of a conventional phantom; both phantoms were placed in a virtual copy of the Human Monitoring Laboratory's whole body counter. The simulations covered a wide energy range (126-2,754 keV), and the agreement between the two types of phantoms was 0.988 +/- 0.005. Based on these findings, a prototype sliced BOMAB phantom corresponding to a Reference Female will be constructed. If the results were unfavorable, as was not the case, then the expense of building and testing the phantom would have been avoided.