ABSTRACT
CH A P T E 1 International Organization for Medical Physics Statement Kin Yin Cheung President of the International Organization for Medical Physics, 2012-2015 Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital, Hong Kong
Slavik Tabakov President of the International Organization for Medical Physics, 2015-2018 Department of Medical Engineering and Physics, King’s College London, UK
MEDICAL EXPOSURE has been the largest radiation exposure tothe human population from man-made radiation sources, per UnitedNations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation’s report (UNSCEAR 2008). Exposure of the population due to medical imaging procedures has grown very rapidly over the past few decades. For this reason, the contribution to population dose from medical imaging has increased sig-
(UNSCEAR 2008), than 3,600,000,000 radiological procedures have been carried out every year around the world. The global annual effective dose per capita due to medical exposure has increased by about 100% to 0.64 mSv during the period 1993 to 2008. With increasing use of CT in diagnostic radiology, particularly in the developed countries, a higher rate of increase in annual effective dose per capita can be expected. In the United States, for instance, the annual effective dose per capita has increased from 0.54 mSv to 3.0 mSv during the period 1980 to 2006 (NCRP 2009). Increasing availability of radiation medicine to the global population due to expanding clinical service scope, improvement in service quality through advancing technologies and sophisticated clinical procedures, and changes in clinical diagnostic procedures to those more dependent on medical imaging, such as computed tomography (CT) in patient management in the clinics, might have contributed to this rapid increase in population dose. This trend of increasing population dose is likely to continue, perhaps at an increasing rate. The phenomenon has raised some concerns in the medical and radiation safety communities as well as in the public media on the potential cancer risks to patients, especially young and pregnant patients receiving diagnostic radiological procedures. There may be a need to review and strengthen the current practice of radiation protection in medicine, particularly in the management of patient dose. In addressing such issues, it is important to put the risks and benefits of medical exposure into the right perspective. For instance, reports on the hazards of medical exposure, if not addressed appropriately, could be misleading to members of the public. This in turn could raise unnecessary fears for patients and their relatives, especially pregnant patients and parents of young patients, and deter them from taking needed medical exposure. This in turn could put patients’ lives at even bigger risk.
