Preface

Article Outline

• Copyright

Over the years, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), referred to below as ‘the Commission’, has issued many reports providing advice on radiological protection and safety in medicine, most recently its Publication 73 which is a general overview of this area. These reports summarise the general principles of radiation protection and provide advice on the application of those principles to the various uses of ionising radiation in medicine and biomedical research.

Most of these reports are of a general nature, and the Commission wishes to address some specific situations where difficulties have been observed. It is desirable that reports on such problem areas be written in a style which is accessible to those who may be directly concerned in their daily work, and that every effort is taken to ensure wide circulation of such reports.

A first step in this direction was taken at the Commission's meeting in Oxford, United Kingdom, in September 1997. At that time, on the recommendation of ICRP Committee 3, the Commission established a Task Group to produce this report on pregnancy and medical radiation. The purpose was to cover the basic issues of pregnancy and ionising radiation in medicine in a concise report, including and coherent with the Commission's current recommendations, that could be easily understood by the medical community and easily translated. The report should cover the most commonly asked questions, discuss the management of pregnant patients as well as pregnant workers, and provide a practical approach that can be used in varying situations.

The membership of the Task Group was as follows:

Corresponding members were:

The membership of Committee 3 during the period of preparation of this report was:

This report aims to serve the purposes described above. Since the report is intended for a very wide audience, its style differs in some respects from the usual style of the Commission's publications in the Annals of the ICRP. For instance, literature references are not given along the lines common in scientific reports; instead, a bibliography including the source material as well as useful further reading is supplied at the end.

The report was approved for publication by the Commission through postal ballot in November 1999.