Due to the forthcoming implementation of the Directive,
EFOMP is working on several initiatives to promote this trasposition at national level,
through:
- Statements
- Research projects
- A specific EFOMP working group prepared statement relating to Article 60 (fig.3) of “COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013 “
Fig. 3: Art. 60 of COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013
References: COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013
The aim of EFOMP’s document is to clarify the position on article 60.3 (c-f) (fig.4) of the EU BSS Directive regarding optimization processes.
Fig. 4: EFOMP Guidelines on the transposition of EU BSS art. 60 in national legislations
References: EFOMP
EFOMP Guidelines on the transposition of EU BSS art.
60 in national legislations was approved by the EFOMP Board during the EFOMP Officers meeting held in Girona,
Spain,
15-16 June 2017.
The equipment used for interventional radiology and computed tomography and any new equipment used for planning,
guiding and verification purposes,
shall be able to inform the practitioner about the radiation output,
angles and distances (as appropriate) and any other relevant exposure parameters using the metrics presented in Table 1.
Furthermore,
equipment used for interventional radiology and computed
tomography (including any new equipment installed prior to 6 February 2018) must have the capacity to transfer this information to the record of the examination.
The recommended output parameters that should be used to quantify the radiation output are listed in Table 1
Table 1: EFOMP Guidelines on the transposition of EU BSS art. 60 in national legislations
References: EFOMP
The Medical Physics Expert (MPE) has a fundamental role to:
1) measuring and interpreting the output of the radiological equipment,
estimating the related uncertainty,
periodically verifying the calibration
2) planning optimization strategies,
dosimetric evaluations,
quality controls and giving advice based on the outcomes
3) comparing different equipment/protocols with the purpose of optimizing the procedures and advising the physician.
In this case,
it might be necessary to translate the output metrics to
effective dose and/or organ equivalent doses to compare those doses between different modalities for optimization purposes.
It is very important that the MPE defines the correct information to be captured that is related to the patient radiation dose.
Some radiological dosimetry metrics are not simple to understand (CTDI,
SSDE for examples) and the MPE has the role and responsibility to use those metrics to estimate patient doses (including their use in establishing Diagnostic Reference Levels) and to guide the medical community in their use.
Due to the forthcoming implementation of the Directive,
EFOMP is working on several initiatives to promote this trasposition at national level,
through:
- Statements
- Research projects
- EFOMP works on Research project related to the trasposition of “COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013 “ (fig.5)
Fig. 5: EC tender project: Evaluation of national actions regarding the transposition of Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom's requirements in the medical sector
References: EFOMP, ESR, EFRS
The objective of this EC tender project was to evaluate Member States‘ activities for the transposition and implementation of Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom in the medical area.
This project was awarded to a consortium headed by the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP).
Other participating organisations were the European Society of Radiology (ESR) and the European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS).
You can find the document inside the EFOMP webpage
https://www.efomp.org/index.php?r=news/view&id=30