Radiation protection for the parent and child in diagnostic nuclear medicine

Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) 1990

“…The current estimates of the risks of mental retardation and cancer to a live-born child following in utero irradiation have been summarised in an earlier editorial (Mountford 1991). The phenomenon of mental retardation is considered to be deterministic, with a threshold dose of at least 0.1 Sv.…”

“…The guidance already issued to protect an infant breast-fed by a mother undergoing a nuclear medicine procedure and to protect the offspring and parents of radioactive adult and paediatric patients, respectively, has been based on keeping the exposed individual's dose to less than 1 mSv (Mountford 1991). In deciding the equivalent dose limits for members of the public of 15 mSv for the lens of the eye and 50 mSv for the skin, ICRP has adopted an arbitrary reduction factor of 10 in recognition that the period of exposure may be longer than for workers and that the exposed population may have a wider range of sensitivity.…”