Dose point-kernels for radionuclide dosimetry

Dose point-kernels (DPKs) are widely used for radionuclide dosimetry. More than three decades ago Loevinger et al. [1] justified the use of ‘Point Source Dose Functions’ (ancestors of DPKs) for emissions: ‘The problem of determining the absorbed dose around a localized particle source in tissue can be separated in two steps. First, the distribution of dose around a (hypothetical) point source of particles in tissue is determined. Second, the dose distribution in and around a localized particle source is calculated by a suitable summation of the elementary point source distribution.'.