Dose constraints to the individual annual doses of exposed workers in the medical sector.

The study is an attempt, within the process of the optimization of radiation protection, to propose constraints to the individual annual doses of classified workers employed in the medical sector of ionizing radiation applications in Greece. These exposed workers were grouped according to their specialties, i.e. medical doctors, technicians and nurses and their occupational category with common or similar tasks, such as diagnostic radiology, interventional radiology, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy. The last 5 years' annual dose distributions of these occupational groups, coming from the National Dose Registry Information System (NDRIS) of the Greek Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) were analyzed. The proposed dose constraints (DCs) were set at levels, below which the annual doses of the 70 or 75% of the exposed workers per category are expected to be included. At the present stage the derived values may be considered achievable ceiling values referring to acceptably applied practices rather than to optimized ones, taking into account social and economic criteria.