Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2017
Keywords:
Safety, Radiation safety, PET, CT, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Action 13 - Stakeholder engagement and collaboration, Action 9 - Facilitation of research in advanced topics of radiation protection, Action 12 - Cooperation with international radiation protection initiatives and other stakeholders including IAEA, WHO, ICRP, HERCA, European Commission, Action 10 - Improved communication and collaboration of health professionals in radiation protection, Action 7 - Medical radiation protection research: MELODI, EURAMED, Dosimetric comparison, Quality assurance, Radiotherapy techniques
Authors:
C. Hoeschen, J. Damilakis, W. Doerr, G. Frija, G. Glatting, H. Langendijk, K. Muylle, G. Paulo, W. Stiller, V. Tsapaki, J. McNulty
DOI:
10.1594/esi2017/ESI-0053
Background/Introduction
For the first time,
five medical societies within Europe,
the European Society of Radiology together with the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM),
the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP),
the European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS) and the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO),
have joined forces and agreed on a collaboration to improve the safe application of ionising radiation in medical care by developing and exploring common research strategies and by actively promoting the translation of results into clinical practice.
This has resulted in the establishment of the European Alliance for Medical Radiation Protection Research (EURAMED),
under the umbrella of the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR).
EURAMED was officially launched at the Oxford Radiation Protection Week in September 2016.
This European platform represents a consortium of associations involved in the application of ionising radiation in medicine,
with the goal of jointly improving medical care and its radiation protection issues through sustainable research efforts.
EURAMED will create visibility for the medical field in radiation protection,
and complements already established European platforms in other fields of radiation protection,
such as the Multidisciplinary European Low Dose Initiative (MELODI),
the European Radiation Dosimetry Group (EURADOS),
the European Platform for nuclear and radiological emergency response and recovery (NERIS) and the European Radioecology Alliance (ALLIANCE).
Since medical applications are among the most important contributors to exposure of the general population in Europe to ionising radiation,
it is critical that the results of the research projects in this field are directly transferred into clinical practice for medical radiation protection research to be effective.