The European Society of Radiology (ESR) on 21 September published a statement addressing requirements and recommendations for radiation dose management systems in European Radiology.
"Dose management systems are designed for medical practitioners, radiographers, medical physics experts and other health professionals involved in imaging to support their tasks and duties of radiation protection in accordance with local and national requirements," a working group led by Dr. Reinhard Loose of Hospital Nuremberg in Germany wrote.
Overall, the team concluded the following:
- Dose management systems are helpful tools for monitoring patient exposure, optimization, compliance with diagnostic reference levels, and quality assurance.
- Dose management systems help to fulfill dosimetric aspects of the European Directive 2013/59/Euratom.
"ESR encourages users of radiological modalities to use [dose management systems] wherever possible and appropriate," the group wrote. "[Dose management systems] can be applied as quality control for monitoring patient exposure, assistance of protocol optimization, checking compliance with national and local [diagnostic reference levels], providing exposure data to authorities and detecting unintended exposures."
