Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2020
Keywords:
Not applicable, Outcomes, Dosimetric comparison, Safety, Radiation safety, Nuclear medicine conventional, CT, Conventional radiography, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Management, Action 2 - Clinical diagnostic reference levels (DRLs)
Authors:
J. Damilakis, G. Frija
DOI:
10.26044/esi2020/ESI-00131
Background/introduction
Introduction:
The 33-month European Commission tender project EUCLID (European Study on Clinical Diagnostic Reference Levels for X-ray Medical Imaging) (Figure 1) was launched in August 2017 and submitted its draft final report in January 2020 (with an update, if applicable, due in April 2020). In December 2019 a workshop was held in Luxembourg to discuss the outcomes of the project. This poster will summarize the main results and outcomes of that workshop and the project in general.
Background:
Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) were developed as a means of indicating unusually high or low patient radiation doses from medical imaging examinations and procedures. The establishment and use of DRLs are required in the European Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom – Basic Safety Standards (BSS).
DRLs are normally not specified in relation to the clinical indication, merely the body region. To date, few national radiation protection authorities have defined DRLs for different clinical indications in spite of numerous studies being available. The European Commission recognised this gap and approved the EUCLID project with the goal of specifying up-to-date clinical DRLs for the most important, from a radiation protection perspective, x-ray imaging tasks in Europe.