David Broggio

• PhD
• Laboratory Manager at Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN)

BACKGROUND Post-radiotherapy atrial fibrillation (AF) in breast cancer (BC) patients is a relatively new and understudied topic. AF can increase the risk of stroke and other serious cardiovascular complications, compromising patients' quality of life and survival. Detection of AF, both asymptomatic and symptomatic forms, is therefore essential for...

The presence of Cesium-137 ( ¹³⁷ Cs) in the environment after nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi raises many health issues for the surrounding populations chronically exposed through the food chain. Unlike previous in vivo studies that focused solely on male exposures, this experimental research aims to assess the biodistribution...

This report aims to provide a comprehensive background to promote and define future research to optimize radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT). For this purpose, experts on several domains, have reviewed relevant literature until December 2022, paying special attention to the present status, challenges and identified gaps related to internal dosimetry...

Background Post-radiotherapy atrial fibrillation (AF) in breast cancer (BC) patients is a relatively new and understudied topic. AF can increase the risk of stroke and other serious cardiovascular complications, compromising patients' quality of life and survival. Detection of AF, both asymptomatic and symptomatic forms, is therefore essential for...

Objective Thyroid cancers are on the rise, but the associated vital prognosis and long-term survival rates are very good. Therefore, treated patients’ quality of life and psychological well-being are important considerations. The treatment usually involves surgery and radioactive iodine (radioiodine) ablation. This study aims to investigate potenti...

During a nuclear/radiological incident or an accident involving internal intakes with radioactive cobalt or strontium, the recommended treatments, consisting of the administration of diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid for ⁶⁰ Co and calcium gluconate for ⁹⁰ Sr, are of low specificity, and their effectiveness can be enhanced. In this manuscript, a li...

Methods for determining the radiation dose received by exposed biota require major improvements to reduce uncertainties and increase precision. We share our experiences in attempting to quantify external dose rates to free-ranging wildlife using GPS-coupled dosimetry methods. The manuscript is a primer on fundamental concepts in wildlife dosimetry...

Molecular radiotherapy is a treatment modality that requires personalized dosimetry for efficient treatment and reduced toxicity. Current clinical imaging systems and miniaturized gamma-cameras lack the necessary features for this task. In this paper, we present the design and optimization of a mobile gamma-camera with a 10×10 cm field of view tail...

Background In order to ensure adequate radiation protection of critical groups such as staff, caregivers and the general public coming into proximity of nuclear medicine (NM) patients, it is necessary to consider the impact of the radiation emitted by the patients during their stay at the hospital or after leaving the hospital. Current risk assessm...

In a nuclear emergency, one of the actions taken for the sake of public is to monitor thyroid exposure to radioiodines. Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority recently published a report on such monitoring and proposed direct thyroid measurements with conventional NaI(Tl) survey meters (e.g. Hitachi model TCS-172) as a primary screening method. A pre...

It is a challenging task to establish a feasible and robust method for the population monitoring of individuals’ thyroid exposure following an accidental intake of radioiodines in a nuclear emergency, because of the time restriction. The authors previously proposed a method for such monitoring to obtain as many reliable human data as possible and o...

Background—Radiotherapy (RT) for breast cancer (BC) can lead to an increased risk of coronary artery disease several years after RT. The aim of this study was to evaluate the development of overall, non-calcified and calcified atherosclerotic plaques over 2 years after BC for RT and associations with cardiac exposure. Methods—The study included 101...

Chronic cigarette smoking leads to changes in the respiratory tract that might affect the dose received from exposure to radon progeny. In this study, changes induced by cigarette smoking in the respiratory tract were collected from the literature and used for calculation of the dose received by the lungs and organs outside the respiratory tract. M...

The increasing use of new radiopharmaceuticals invites to reconsider some radioprotection issues, such as the contact restriction time that limits the public exposure by nuclear medicine patients. Contact restriction time should be patient specific and conservative, and its assessment made easy for the clinicians. Here a method is proposed, based o...

Purpose To assess sinoatrial node (SAN) and atrioventricular node (AVN) doses for breast cancer (BC) patients treated with 3D-CRT and evaluate whether “large” cardiac structures (whole heart and four cardiac chambers) would be relevant surrogates. Material and Methods This single center study was based on 116 BC patients (56 left-sided, 60 right-s...

Background The progression of targeted radionuclide therapy requires the development of dosimetry software accounting for patient-specific biokinetics. New functionalities were thus developed in the OEDIPE software, to deal with multiple 3D images or multiple planar images and a SPECT image. Materiel & method Methods were implemented to recover pa...

Background Following radioiodine (131I) therapy of differentiated thyroid cancer, the salivary glands may become inflamed, leading to dysfunctions and decreases in patients’ nutritional status and quality of life. The incidence of these dysfunctions after 131I-therapy is poorly known, and no clinical or genetic factors have been identified to date...

Background Previous studies suggested that radiation therapy (RT) for breast cancer (BC) can induce cardiac arrhythmias and conduction disorders. However, the association with mean heart dose and specific cardiac substructures doses was less studied. Materials and Methods We conducted a nested case–control study based on French BC patients, enroll...

Nuclear medicine patients are a source of exposure and should receive instructions to restrict contact time with different categories of people. The calculation of the restriction time requires that the dose rate at a given distance, known from an initial measurement and a whole-body retention function, can be extrapolated at other distances. As a...

Objective: Molecular radiotherapy is the most used treatment modality against malign and benign diseases of thyroid. In that context, the large heterogeneity of therapeutic doses in patients and the range of effects observed show that individualized dosimetry is essential for optimizing treatments according to the targeted clinical outcome. Appro...

BACKGROUND Following radioiodine (¹³¹I) therapy of differentiated thyroid cancer, the salivary glands may become inflamed, leading to dysfunctions and decreases in patients’ nutritional status and quality of life. The incidence of these dysfunctions after ¹³¹I-therapy is poorly known, and no clinical or genetic factors have be...

Contexte Suite au traitement par radioiode (I¹³¹) du cancer différencié de la thyroïde, les glandes salivaires peuvent être le siège d’inflammations, provoquant des troubles salivaires (TbS). L’incidence des TbS est mal connue ainsi que les facteurs de risque cliniques et génétiques. L’étude START vise à estimer l’incidence des TbS après traitement...

To further improve the understanding ofinvitrobiological effects of incorporated radionuclides, it is essential to accurately determine cellular absorbed doses. In the case of β-emitters, the cross-dose is a major contribution, and can involve up to millions of cells. Realistic and efficient computational models are needed for that purpose. Convent...

Background Breast cancer (BC) radiotherapy (RT) and resulting left ventricle (LV) exposure have been associated with subclinical LV dysfunction characterized by a global longitudinal strain (GLS) reduction > 10-15% that could arise 6 months after RT. The acute phase of radiation response consists of inflammatory process. Fibrinogen, an essential co...

Background Breast cancer (BC) radiotherapy (RT) and the resulting cardiac exposure is associated with early decrease of global longitudinal strain (GLS). Recent software allows multi-layer and segmental analysis of strain, which may be of interest to quantify and locate the impact of cardiac exposure on myocardial function and potentially increase...

Background: Radiotherapy for breast cancer (BC) and its resulting cardiac exposure are associated with subclinical left ventricular dysfunction characterized by early decrease of global longitudinal strain (LS) measurement based on 2D speckle-tracking echocardiography. Recent software allows multi-layer and segmental analysis of strain, which may...

Treatment with ¹³¹I is one of the standard treatments for benign thyroid disease. In most cases, the prescribed dose is specific for the same disease. Inspired by external radiotherapy, the emergence of personalized pre-therapeutic dosimetry in nuclear medicine departments makes it possible to adapt to the patient's diseases and physiology; more sp...

Exposures in post-accidental situations are complex and include both external exposure and internal contamination with several radionuclides. However, in vivo and in vitro studies generally use simplified exposures, while a recent study suggested that combined external irradiation and internal contamination may induce more severe biological effects...

Background Breast cancer radiotherapy (BC RT) can be associated with long-term, silent and lately detected cardiotoxicity. Longitudinal strain (LS), based on 2D speckle-tracking echocardiography (2DSTE) can early detect subclinical left ventricular dysfunction. Little is known on the association between RT-induced cardiac doses and LS changes. Pur...

Background: Breast cancer (BC) radiotherapy (RT) can induce cardiotoxicity, with adverse events often observed many years after BC RT. Subclinical left ventricular (LV) dysfunction can be detected early after BC RT with global longitudinal strain (GLS) measurement based on 2D speckle-tracking echocardiography. This 6-month follow-up analysis from...

Measurements of external contaminant exposures on individual wildlife are rare because of difficulties in using contaminant monitors on free-ranging animals. Most wildlife contaminant exposure data are therefore simulated with computer models. Rarely are empirical exposure data available to verify model simulations, or to test fundamental assumptio...

This is the Supplementary Section to: "GPS-coupled contaminant monitors on free-ranging Chernobyl wolves challenge a fundamental assumption in environmental risk assessments"

In case of a nuclear reactor accident affecting a large population the internal contamination of the workers and the public can be assessed through in vivo measurements. Since iodine-131 is one of the most important releases and since it is of health concern, thyroid monitoring of this radionuclide is of special interest. Intercomparisons of thyroi...

The paper presents a “one-step” procedure for the direct dose assessment based on thyroid monitoring data obtained after a severe nuclear accident at a light water power reactor. The developed methodology is based on the “dose per content” concept that allows the direct conversion of the measured value to the dose estimate. The paper provides metho...

Positron emission tomography (PET) offers an effective method for tracking β+ emitters-labeled cells in vivo. However, in vitro high labelling activities used may cause cell damage or death. Our understanding of the impact of such procedure remains limited by the fact that the biological effects are usually linked to the activity per cell rather th...

Introduction La radiothérapie (RT) est une composante majeure du traitement du cancer du sein. Cependant, la RT du sein est associée à une toxicité cardiaque à long terme pouvant provoquer l’apparition de pathologies cardiovasculaires 10 à 15 ans post-RT. La détection des premiers indices du développement d’une ou plusieurs modifications cardiovasc...

Following a nuclear incident, ¹³¹ I monitoring is usually carried out by performing in vivo measurements of the retained activity in the thyroid. The measurement equipment needs to be calibrated in order to convert thyroid count rates into retained activity. This calibration relies on measurements or Monte Carlo computations using appropriate anthr...

Technical recommendations in respect of the thyroid dose rate measurements potentially carried out by members of the public in case of nuclear power plant accident are elaborated based on theoretical considerations and practical experiences with instruments offered to the public for “radioactivity measurements”. Practical advices are given on how t...

One of the issues of the Open Project for the European Radiation Research Area (OPERRA) was human thyroid monitoring in case of a large scale nuclear accident. This issue was covered in task 5.4 as project “CaThyMARA” (Child and Adult Thyroid Monitoring After Reactor Accident), which included several aspects of thyroid monitoring, e.g. screening of...

There are ongoing social debates about the risks and benefits of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Radiation accidents can occur for different reasons and even be caused deliberately as a result of terrorist actions, and these may affect from a few to thousands of people. After a major release of radioactive iodine as a result of a nu...

Background Intra-individual heterogeneity of cardiac exposure is an issue in breast cancer (BC) radiotherapy that was poorly considered in previous cardiotoxicity studies mainly based on mean heart dose (MHD). This dosimetric study analyzes the distribution of individually-determined radiation doses to the heart and its substructures including coro...

Following a severe nuclear reactor accident large amounts of radioactive iodine are released in the atmosphere. Health consequences estimation for the affected population is based on the dose assessment which can be derived from in vivo measurements. Since the uptake of radioactive iodine increases the thyroid cancer risk of children it is of parti...

Background Radiotherapy (RT) is a major component of breast cancer treatment and advanced RT techniques allowed reducing irradiation of healthy tissue. However, the heart often remains partially exposed. Detailed individual heart dosimetry information is required to better understand radiation-induced cardiac damage. Purpose To analyze the distrib...

Age-specific thyroid phantoms corresponding to 5, 10, 15 years-old and the adult case have been designed and manufactured with a 3D printer. Reference measurements of the counting efficiency have been carried out for thyroid in vivo monitoring of 131I with all these phantoms. These measurements where performed for the emergency mobile units of IRSN...

In case of nuclear accident, the internal exposure monitoring of the population will preferably focus on the detection of ¹³¹I in the thyroid by in vivo monitoring. In most cases the calibration of in vivo monitoring is performed with an adult thyroid phantom which raises doubts regarding the relevance of children exposure assessment. In...

This report summarizes the findings about parameters influencing thyroid in vivo monitoring of 131 I. The parameters were studied by Monte Carlo calculations using realistic anthropomorphic voxel phantoms and four previously validated detector models (3 NaI detectors and 1 Germanium detectors). The voxel phantoms corresponded to the following ages:...

In the case of a nuclear reactor accident the release contains a high proportion of iodine-131 that can be inhaled or ingested by members of the public. Iodine-131 is naturally retained in the thyroid and increases the thyroid cancer risk. Since the radiation induced thyroid cancer risk is greater for children than for adults, the thyroid dose to c...

DESCRIPTION This report gives technical guidelines for radio-iodine monitoring following a nuclear incident. Monitoring aspects addressed include the choice of detectors, the calibration and measurement process, factors affecting measurements, measurement uncertainties, the preparation of equipment and measurement locations, the measurement time, t...

DESCRIPTION This report presents the result of the work carried out by the Work Package 6 of the CAThyMARA project. This work focused on the direct assessment of the thyroid dose or committed effective dose from measurements. As a result dose per content functions are derived for different ages (new born, 1,5,10,15-years old children and adult) and...

Purpose/objective The increased risk of cardiovascular diseases following left breast radiation therapy is well known, these diseases are multifactorial but the radiation dose plays a key role.Since hot spots of tens of Grays can affect the Left Anterior Descending coronary artery (LAD) it should be, if possible, spared.For that purpose the first p...

Introduction Prostate brachytherapy is a radiotherapy technique whereby a set of sealed radioactive seeds are inserted in the prostate. In clinical practice, the absorbed dose in the prostate is determined using specific software. In this study, Monte Carlo (MC) simulations in a segmented voxel phantom of a real patient are used to determine the ab...

Monte Carlo (MC) methods are numerical simulation techniques that can be used to extend the scope of calibrations performed in in vivo monitoring laboratories. These methods allow calibrations to be carried out for a much wider range of body shapes and sizes than would be feasible using physical phantoms. Unfortunately, nowadays, this powerful tech...

Background Radiotherapy (RT) for breast cancer presents a benefit in terms of reducing local recurrence and deaths resulting from breast cancer but it can lead to secondary effects due to the presence of neighboring cardiac normal tissues within the irradiation field. Breast RT has been shown to be associated with long-term increased risk of heart...

Background and purpose The dose effect-effect relationship for cardiac diseases following radiotherapy suffers from uncertainties. Three dimensional coronary artery (CA) dose calculation after mediastinal Hodgkin lymphoma radiotherapy was performed, using the patient’s coronary CT angiography (CCTA), and the relationship between the coronary arteri...

In 2011 a measurement intercomparison was launched by EURADOS WG7, with the objective of providing the participants with the tools to calibrate their detection systems for detection of 241Am in the skull bone, and evaluate the variability due to the used of the different calibration phantoms. Three skull phantoms were used in this intercomparison:...

Breast radiotherapy (RT) techniques used until the 1990s were responsible for increased mortality due to long term cardiac complications. Since the 2000s, improved techniques of RT have appeared leading to different dose distributions to organ at risks such as heart. But up to now, little is known on their cardiac toxicity. The aim of the REBECCA s...

In vivo lung counting aims at assessing the retained activity in the lungs. The calibration factor relating the measured counts to the worker's specific retained lung activity can be obtained by several means and strongly depends on the chest wall thickness. Here we compare, for 374 male nuclear workers, the activity assessed with a reference proto...

To go further in the optimization of treatment planning in selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT), radiobiological aspects can be accounted for with the OEDIPE software and used to design fractionation protocols. Dosimetry was performed using data from Tc-99Tm-MAA evaluations of 10 patients treated for hepatic metastases with SIRT. The maximal...

For targeted radionuclide therapies, treatment planning usually consists of the administration of standard activities without accounting for the patient-specific activity distribution, pharmacokinetics and dosimetry to organs at risk. The OEDIPE software is a user-friendly interface which has an automation level suitable for performing personalized...

The measurement performances of in vivo monitoring vehicles were studied considering an increase in the radiological background in areas where the population is not evacuated after a nuclear accident. The study focused on Cs-137 and I-131 Detection Limits (DLs) and corresponding doses, for adults and one-year-old children. These DLs for ground cont...

Purpose In left-side breast radiation therapy (RT), doses to the left main (LM) and left anterior descending (LAD) coronary arteries are usually assessed after delineation by prior anatomic knowledge on the treatment planning computed tomography (CT) scan. In this study, dose sensitivity due to interindividual coronary topology variation was assess...

The thickness and fat fraction of the chest wall are important parameters for in vivo lung monitoring. They have been measured from ultrasonic images on 374 male workers of the French nuclear industry using four measurement locations, as dictated by the size and position of the germanium detectors used for monitoring. The plastic muscle equivalent...

Purpose: To improve cardiovascular dosimetry in radiation therapy (RT), as recommended in the NCRP report N°170, using hybrid computational phantoms (HCPs). Methods: For the Hodgkin lymphoma, HCPs were proposed as patient models to improve dose reconstructions for a multifactorial study on the coronary diseases following radiation therapy. HCPs...

In vivo measurements are commonly used to determine the incorporated activity of radionuclides. However, for complex or old contaminations, the assessment of the activity distribution among organs is difficult to obtain from measurements only. A method is suggested to assess the activity of organs; it consists in separating the contribution of each...

In case of a radiological emergency situation involving accidental human exposure, a dosimetry evaluation must be established as soon as possible. In most cases, this evaluation is based on numerical representations and models of subjects. Unfortunately, personalised and realistic human representations are often unavailable for the exposed subjects...

In case of a radiological emergency situation involving accidental human exposure, a dosimetry evaluation must be established as soon as possible. In most cases, this evaluation is based on numerical representations and models of victims. Unfortunately, personalised and realistic human representations are often unavailable for the exposed subjects....

In order to assess the reliability of Monte Carlo (MC)-based numerical calibration of in vivo counting systems the EURADOS network supported a comparison of MC simulation of well-defined experiments. This action also provided training for the use of voxel phantoms. In vivo measurements of enriched uranium in a thoracic phantom have been carried out...

Purpose: Current retrospective cardiovascular dosimetry studies are based on a representative patient or simple mathematic phantoms. Here, a process of patient modeling was developed to personalize the anatomy of the thorax and to include a heart model with coronary arteries. Methods and materials: The patient models were hybrid computational ph...

EURADOS working group on 'Internal Dosimetry (WG7)' represents a frame to develop activities in the field of internal exposures as coordinated actions on quality assurance (QA), research and training. The main tasks to carry out are the update of the IDEAS Guidelines as a reference document for the internal dosimetry community, the implementation a...

In order to best cover the possible extent of heights and weights of male adults the construction of 25 whole body 3D models has been undertaken. Such a library is thought to be useful to specify the uncertainties and relevance of dosimetry calculations carried out with models representing individuals of average body heights and weights. Representa...

To optimize the in vivo lung monitoring of nuclear workers, realistic calibration coefficients are assessed using 3D anthropomorphic models and Monte Carlo simulations. In this study, a Livermore voxel phantom and the torso of the ICRP adult female reference voxel phantom were used. Monte Carlo MCNPX simulations were achieved to compute the calibra...

Three facilities (CIEMAT, HMGU and HML) have used their in vivo counters to compare two leg phantoms. One was commercially produced with (241)Am activity artificially added to the bone inserts. The other, the United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries' (USTUR) leg phantom, was manufactured from (241)Am-contaminated bones resulting from an in...

A new method for the monitoring of female workers with in vivo measurements using deformable Mesh and NURBS phantoms and Monte Carlo calculations. In vivo spectrometry is a very efficient method used for the monitoring of workers with internal contamination risks that enables the assessment of the incorporated activity and/or its distribution in th...

This paper addresses the question of the morphological dependence of counting efficiency curves for in vivo lung monitoring of workers, with a particular focus on the case of female workers for whom different chest girth and cup size are considered. A library of 24 female torsos, with chest girth varying from 85 to 120 and cup size from A to F, was...