Congress:
EuroSafe Imaging 2020
Keywords:
Not applicable, Education and training, Dosimetric comparison, Technical aspects, Radiation safety, Fluoroscopy, CT, Conventional radiography, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Radiation physics, Action 5 - Performance indicators for radiation protection management
Authors:
E. Vano, G. Frija, E. Efstathopoulos, C. Granata, R. W. Loose, G. Paulo, D. Pekarovic, J. Sjöberg, L. Donoso, W. Stiller
DOI:
10.26044/esi2020/ESI-01161
Background/introduction
The Eurosafe Imaging campaign is an initiative under the ESR (European Society of Radiology). In 2019, Eurosafe launched a new Working Group (WG) on “Dosimetry for imaging in clinical practice” with the aim to suggest realistic approaches to fulfil the dosimetric aspects required by the European Directive 2013/59/EURATOM [1,2] to audit the radiation safety in medical imaging, including the proper use of Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) [3,4]. One additional and relevant task for the WG was to help in the implementation of the automatic patient dose registries and the appropriate validation methods for the dosimetric results.
The European Society of Radiology (ESR) is trying to help in the implementation process of the Directive using the working groups established as part of the Eurosafe Imaging initiative. The different opinions and interpretations of the Directive by the members of the ESR and delegates from other cooperative societies and organisations involved in the WGs have been taken into account. The “Dosimetry for imaging in clinical practice” WG includes delegates from CIRSE (Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe), EFOMP (European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics), EFRS (European Federation of Radiographer Societies) and COCIR (European Coordination Committee of the Radiological Electromedical and Healthcare IT Industry).
EuroSafe Imaging presented a second “Call for Action” in 2018 [5] to contribute to achieving the campaign’s aims and to guide all activities developed by EuroSafe Imaging. These actions are supporting the Bonn Call for Action, issued in 2012 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) [6].
It should be noted that in addition to the European regulations, the European Guidelines on Clinical Audit [7, 8] recommend, “the assessment of patient dose from X-ray procedures should be among the necessary physical parts of all clinical audits”.
The primary selected topics by the WG were information on radiation exposure, individual optimisation and the use of automatic dose registry systems. This selection was followed by an internal survey among the members of the WG, suggesting some initial consensus approaches.