NCRP Report no.180—management of exposure to ionizing radiation: NCRP radiation protection guidance for the United States

Abstract

NCRP Report No. 180, ‘Management of Exposure to Ionizing Radiation: Radiation Protection Guidance for the United States (2018)’ was developed by Council Committee 1. The report builds and expands upon previous recommendations of NCRP and ICRP, covering exposure to radiation and radioactive materials for five exposure categories: occupational, public, medical, emergency workers, and nonhuman biota. Actions to add, increase, reduce or remove a source of exposure to humans require justification. Optimisation of protection universally applies, taking into account societal, economic, and environmental factors; addressing all hazards, and striving for continuous improvement when it is reasonable to do so. Numeric protection criteria for management of dose to an individual for a given exposure situation are provided, and differ in some respects from ICRP. A specific numeric criterion is suitable to be designated as a regulatory dose limit only when the source of exposure is stable, characterised, and the responsible organisation has established an appropriate radiation control program in advance of source introduction. Medical exposure includes patients, comforters and caregivers of a patient, and voluntary participants in biomedical research. Emergency workers are a new exposure category; their exposure is treated separately from occupational, public or medical exposure, and numeric criteria are provided for deterministic and stochastic effects. For nonhuman biota, the focus is on population maintenance of the affected species, and a guideline is provided for when additional assessment may be necessary. In addition, the recommendations emphasise that: ethical principles support decision-making; stakeholder engagement is necessary in deciding suitable management of their radiation exposure; and a strong safety culture is intrinsic to effective radiation protection programs.

0° vs. 180° CT localiser: The effect of vertical off‐centring, phantom positioning and tube voltage on dose optimisation in multidetector computed tomography

“… 1 However, the contribution of CT to the burden of population dose has continued to increase, this increase being proportional to the rapidly growing number of CT examinations performed worldwide. 2 In response, CT manufacturers continue to develop and implement technological tools, such as iterative reconstruction techniques, automated tube voltage selection (ATVS) and adaptive beam collimation in conjunction with the use of a bowtie filter to optimise radiation dose. 3 , 4 , 5 Another fundamental dose management technique is automatic tube current modulation (ATCM), which has enabled dose reduction of up to 60% without compromising diagnostic image quality.…”

Analysis of circRNA-miRNA-mRNA Regulatory Network in Peripheral Blood of Radiation Workers

“…For classical examination items such as chromosome micronucleus and chromosome aberration, it can be observed whether the dose is still suitable for the current post. 17 However, it is not clear whether the occupational health of radiation workers will be affected. Epidemiological results show that long-term low-dose ionizing radiation may affect the health of radiation workers, such as cancer, cardiovascular, and cerebrovascular diseases, etc.…”

Radiodiagnostic Equipment: Regulations and Materiovigilance

“…In medical imaging, radiation accidents are more frequent when handling radioactive sources [21][22] than when using x-ray sources in radiodiagnostics [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The low radiation doses immanent to X-ray tubes cause long-term effects and for which regulations require rigorous safety standards for radiological facilities and practices in order to reduce to the lowest possible level the exposure of professionals and patients as well as the public [2, 3,11].…”

“…The short-term side effects of ionizing radiation are related to high doses, and are well known and rare. However, the problem arises for low doses where the risk only appears after a long period of time due to the accumulation of doses [3][4]. As a result, vigilance regarding exposure to ionizing radiation is particularly delicate.…”