| Summary: | Dose limits are commonly not applied for the radiation protection from medical exposure in the international practice; the principles of justification and optimization are used instead. However, the Russian Norms of the Radiation Safety NRB 99/2009 provide for the limitation (non-exceedance) of the doses for the healthy individuals undergoing X-ray examinations related to the employment-related, legal or screening purposes by 1 mSv per year. The aim of the study was to assess the feasibility of limiting the doses for the healthy individuals undergoing diagnostic medical X-ray examinations in the context of the revision of the Norms of the Radiation Safety. The study included the analysis of the existing Russian legislative documents regulating the medical exposure related to the employment-related, legal and screening purposes; evaluation of the imaging modalities commonly used for these purposes and conservative estimation of the effective doses per employment-related medical examination or a periodic health assessment. The results of the study indicate that a limit of 1 mSv per year is systematically exceeded for the healthy individuals undergoing X-ray examinations related to the employment-related, legal or screening purposes. Implementation of the modern screening methods (low-dose computer tomography, breast tomosynthesis) would lead to the significant increase of the effective dose per periodic health assessment up to 3-8 mSv per year. Hence, it is proposed to use the principle of the optimization with the establishment of the diagnostic reference levels for the screening X-ray examinations for the radiation protection of healthy individuals from medical exposure.
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