Russian practical guidance on radiological support for justification of X-ray and nuclear medicine examinations

An important part of the justification process is assessment of the radiation risks caused by exposure of a patient during examination. The authors developed official national methodology both for medical doctors and sanitary inspectors called ‘assessment
of radiation risks of patients undergoing diagnostic examinations with the use of ionizing radiation’. The document addresses
patients of various age groups and a wide spectrum of moder n X-ray and nuclear medicine examinations. Inter national scale of
risk categorisation was implemented by the use of effective dose with account for age dependence of radiation risk. The survey of
effective doses in radiology, including CT, mammography, and intervention radiology, and nuclear medicine, including singlephoton emission tomography and positron emission tomography, for patients of various age groups from several regions of Russia
was used for the risk assessment. The output of the methodology is a series of tables for each diagnostic technology with lists of
examinations for three age groups (children / adolescents, adults and seniors) corresponding to various radiation risk categories.