Old enemy, new threat: you can ’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solution

The radiation protection principles of justification, optimization, and dose limitation as
enumerated by the International Commission on Radiological Protection have been guiding light for
the profession for over three decades. The dose limitation does not apply to medical exposure but
keeping patients ’ doses low is achieved through optimization, particularly by developing and using
diagnostic reference levels (DRLs). There are new findings that demonstrate that despite using the
best possible approaches to justification and optimization including as well use of DRLs, a very
large number of patients are receiving doses in excess of 100 mSv of effective dose or organ doses
exceeding 100 mGy. A non-ignorable fraction of patients is receiving such high doses in a single
day. The magnitude of such patients creates the need for a relook into the principles with the
intent to understand what can be done to attend to today ’s problems. A look at other areas such as
approaches, and princ...

Source: Journal of Radiological Protection - June 1, 2021 Category: Physics Authors: Madan M Rehani Source Type: research