Chapter 6

The system of radiological

protection

ABJASREE S
Role of ICRP

● The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) was

established in 1928.
● It is the internationally recognized body for recommending the safety
standards for radiation protection.
● Some of the earliest recommendations dealt with the length of time that a
worker should be engaged in radiation work.They were,
■ not more than 7 hours per day;
■ not more than 5 days per week;
■ not less than 1 month’s holiday per year;
■ off days to be spent out of doors as much as possible.
Year Dose limit
1925 10% of an erythema dose per year This corresponds to an exposure of
(Proposed by A. Mutscheller and R. M. either about 30 R/y from 100 kV X-rays
Sievert) or about 70 R/y from 200 kV X-rays

1934 0.2 R per day or 1 R per working week Recommended by ICRP

1950 150 mSv per year, or ~3 mSv per week Recommended by ICRP

1956 50 mSv per year, or ~1 mSv per week Recommended by ICRP

1977 Effective dose equivalent limit 50 mSv per Recommended by ICRP

year
1991 Limit of 20 mSv per year on effective dose Averaging over 5 years permitted (ICRP
60)
2007 ICRP 103 Subject to the requirement that the dose
does not exceed 50 mSv in any 1 year
THE 2007 RECOMMENDATIONS OF ICRP (PUBLICATION 103)

Planned exposure situations. Emergency exposure situations Existing exposure

situations

Situations in which a practice that Situations, where urgent action Situations,where

will lead to radiation exposure is might be needed to avoid or people are being
deliberately undertaken. reduce the effects. exposed to an existing
Eg:- Eg:- source of radiation.
The Nuclear power plants, which In a nuclear Eg:-
inevitably leads to radiation emergency,volunteers may be The after-effects of an
exposure of workers and members subject to high radiation emergency or to high
of the public. situations in order to save lives levels of natural
The use of radiation in medical or to re-establish control and radiation.
diagnosis and treatment. reduce the overall consequences.
 Justification
whatever is done should result in sufficient
benefit to offset the radiological detriment or, in
other words, it should do more good than harm.

Optimization
The likelihood of exposure, the number of
Planned exposure
people exposed and the magnitude of individual
situations exposures should all be kept as low as
reasonably achievable (ALARA), with
economic and social factors taken into account.

Dose limitation
The doses to individuals in any planned
exposure situation are subject to limits.
The damage due to ionizing radiation are of 2 type:-

Stochastic effects Deterministic effects

● For which the probability of an effect ● For which the severity of the effect varies
occurring, rather than its severity, is with the dose, and for which a threshold may
regarded as a function of dose, without exist.
threshold. ● Egs:- Acute radiation effects, such as skin
● The most important somatic stochastic burns, and the late effects such as cataract of
effect is the induction of cancers, for the lens of the eye, damage to blood vessels
which the risk must be regarded as and impairment of fertility.
increasing linearly with increasing dose ● The severity of these effects varies with the
received, without threshold. size of the radiation dose received, but they
● Similarly, at the dose levels involved in are not detectable at all unless a quite high
radiation protection, genetic effects are threshold dose is exceeded.
regarded as being stochastic.
Basis of Dose limits

The Aim of ICRP system of radiological protection is to prevent

harmful tissue reactions and to limit the probability of stochastic
effect to acceptable levels
This is achieved by,
● Setting dose limit so that no threshold dose is reached
(Prevention of harmful reactions)
● Keeping all exposures ALARA (Limitation of Stochastic effect)
Tolerability and acceptability
● ICRP recognizes three levels of tolerability of exposure or risk :-
○ Unacceptable:-Level not acceptable in planned situations
○ Tolerable :-the exposure can be tolerated where there is sufficient
benefit
○ Acceptable :- The level of protection has been optimised,and can be
accepted without further improvement
● The dose limit recommended by ICRP are set in between tolerable and
unacceptable
 Recommended dose limit for workers

ICRP recommends,
● An annual effective dose limit for uniform irradiation of the whole body of
20 mSv, averaged over a period of 5 years (100 mSv in 5 years), with the further
provision that the effective dose should not exceed 50 mSv in any single year.

● For non-uniform irradiation of the body, weighting factors have been assigned
to the various individual organs, relative to the whole body reflecting the
radiosensitivity and thus the likely harm attributable to irradiation of each organ.

E=∑WTHT
 Effective and equivalent dose
Absorbed dose D (Gy)

Equivalent dose H (Sv) in tissue T

HT = DT x wR
wR is the radiation weighting factor

Effective dose E (Sv) where

E = ∑T wT ∑R wR DT,
wT is the tissue weighting factor
Note on Dose limits for workers
● All unnecessary exposure should be avoided
● While it is permissible to average a worker’s dose over 5 years, the
effective dose should not exceed 50 mSv in any single year.
● The average dose to a group of workers is normally a few mSv. At this
level the average risk is comparable with the safe range in industries
● The basis of occupational exposure control is same for women as for
men, But once the pregnancy is declared the foetus should receive
same level of protection as a member of public
Workplace Classification

Work places subject to classification as,

Controlled area:- in which normal working conditions require
workers to follow well-established procedures.
Supervised area:- where no special procedures are normally
needed but exposure conditions are kept under review
Dose limit for public

● Dose limit is 1 mSv for public

● In special circumstances higher values could be allowed,
provided average over years does not exceed 1 mSv
● For prevention of tissue effects ICRP recommends limits of
15mSv/y for lens of eye and 50mSv/y for skin
Recommended dose limits
Dose limits

Occupational Public
Effective dose
20 mSv per year 1 mSv per year

Annual equivalent dose

Lens of eye 20 mSv 15 mSv

Skin 500 mSv 50 mSv

Hands and Feet 500 mSv -

Planned exposure situations

● Planned exposure situations are the normal regimes within

which radiation protection is carried out in nuclear facilities,
medical and teaching.
● The radiation protection is based on justification, optimisation
and dose limitation
Justification of practices

• Need to show that any new practice will have a positive net benefit
• For example, the case for nuclear power needs to show that
benefits are sufficient to justify the additional radiation exposure
and risk to workers and general population
• Similarly for any new medical diagnostic or treatment technique
• it needs to be shown that the benefit to patients is sufficient to
justify the additional radiation exposure to both the medical staff
involved and to the patients themselves
• Justification is often of a generic nature and undertaken at
national level

• At some situations Justification also needs to be considered in

some situations at a local or operational level

• For example, in the case of a medical procedure, whether for the

purpose of treatment or diagnosis, the prescribing physician
needs to be sure that there is a potential benefit to the individual
patient
Optimisation
● Optimization requires that the protection measures employed in the design
and operation of facilities should ensure that doses to workers are reduced as
far below the dose limit as can reasonably be achieved.
● ICRP recommends use of the concept of dose and risk constraints applied to
exposure of individual from a single source
● If members of a population could receive exposure from several different
sources, constraints would need to be applied to each source so as to ensure
that the total exposure of any individual remained within the overall dose
limit.
● In setting constraints, experience should be taken into account in similar
situations elsewhere since this could provide a benchmark of what can be
Dose limitation

• Important to appreciate that, in planned situations, the dose

limits are absolute upper limits on exposure
• Application of ALARA usually results in doses well below
limits
• Experience shows that for workers the average dose is generally
10% or less of the limits
• Similarly, it has been found that application of the ALARA
principle and of dose constraints results in doses to members of
the public that are well below the ICRP limits.
Emergency exposure situations
● Normal dose limits do not apply
● Actions based on justification and optimisation
● Very important to have a detailed and well-rehearsed emergency
plan.
■ To restrict exposures as far as is reasonably achievable and,
in particular, to attempt to avoid exposures above the dose
limits. This process is assisted by the use of reference levels
specified by national authorities
■ To bring the situation back under control.
■ To obtain information for assessing the causes and
consequences of the incident.
• Assisted by the use of pre-defined intervention and
reference levels though these only provide useful
guidelines
• A reference level is an effective dose or equivalent
dose above which it is judged inappropriate to allow
exposures to occur as a result of the emergency.
Emergency exposure - workers
● In an emergency, ‘informed volunteers’ may receive large doses for the
purpose of saving life or preventing serious injuries, or to prevent a
substantial increase in the scale of the incident.
● Although reference levels may be laid down in emergency plans, these can
only serve as guidelines.
● Each situation will be unique and must be assessed by those responsible for
the operations at the time.
● The ICRP suggests that limiting effective doses to below 1 Sv should avoid
serious tissue responses, and below 0.5 Sv should avoid other tissue
responses.
● For life-saving operations, it is usually considered that whole-body doses of
up to about 0.5 Sv could be justifiable.
The important considerations would be;
● The accuracy of the information regarding the probable dose rates in the
accident area
● The condition of the casualties and their likelihood of survival

Eg: At Fukushima, for workers seeking to control the situation, a reference

level of 100 mSv was set initially but this was later raised to 250 mSv
Emergency exposure - public

● The ICRP recommends the use of reference levels for public exposure in
the range of 20 to 100 mSv for emergency exposure situations
● Need framework of intervention levels to assist decisions on application
of counter-measures aimed at reducing exposures
■ sheltering indoors
■ Evacuation
■ administration of stable iodine
■ control of food and water
Existing exposure situation

Situations:-

• High level of natural radiation in the environment or within buildings (e.g.

radon) as a result of local geology

• High levels of radioactivity on ground due to previous nuclear accident e.g.

Cs-137 contamination of agricultural land
Existing exposure situation

• Can involve large areas and large populations

• Decisions on countermeasures should take account of
practical considerations and of their disruptive effects
• The ICRP approach is to encourage national authorities to
establish reference levels to assist decision-making whilst
also allowing flexibility
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