ICRP 103 Flashcards
alpha/beta ratio
The dose at which the linear
and quadratic components of cell killing are equal
definition of activity
The expectation value of the number of nuclear transformations occurring in a
given quantity of material per unit time
Adaptive response
A post-irradiation cellular response which, typically, serves to increase the
resistance of the cell to a subsequent radiation exposure
Annual intake
The amount of a specified radionuclide entering the human body by ingestion
or inhalation within one year.
Averted dose
The dose prevented or avoided by the application of a protective measure or set
of protective measures
Baseline rates
The annual disease incidence observed in a population in the absence of exposure to the agent under study.
Bioassay
Any procedure used to determine the nature, activity, location, or retention of
radionuclides in the body by in vivo measurement or by in vitro analysis of
material excreted or otherwise removed from the body.
Bystander effect
A response in unirradiated cells that is triggered by signals received from irradiated neighbouring cells.
Categories of exposure
occupational
public
medical
collective effective dose
units: man Sv
sum of effective dose for a subgrouo times number of individuals in subgroup
committed effective dose
The sum of the products of the committed organ or tissue equivalent doses and
the appropriate tissue weighting factors (wT), where s is the integration time in
years following the intake. The commitment period is taken to be 50 years for
adults, and to age 70 years for children.
committed equivalent dose
The time integral of the equivalent dose rate in a particular tissue or organ that
will be received by an individual following intake of radioactive material into
the body by a Reference Person, where s is the integration time in years
derived air concentration
This equals the annual limit on intake, ALI, (of a radionuclide) divided by the
volume of air inhaled by a Reference Person in a working year (i.e., 2.2 103 m3
).
The unit of DAC is Bq m3
.
detriment
The total harm to health experienced by an exposed group and its descendants
as a result of the group’s exposure to a radiation source. Detriment is a multidimensional concept. Its principal components are the stochastic quantities:
probability of attributable fatal cancer, weighted probability of attributable
non-fatal cancer, weighted probability of severe heritable effects, and length
of life lost if the harm occurs.
Detriment-adjusted risk
The probability of the occurrence of a stochastic effect, modified to allow for
the different components of the detriment in order to express the severity of
the consequence(s)
Diagnostic reference level
Used in medical imaging with ioning radiation to indicate whether, in routine
conditions, the patient dose or administered activity (amount of radioactive
material) from a specified procedure is unusually high or low for that procedure.
dose modifying factor
ratio of doses with and without modifying agents,
causing the same level of biological effect
Dose and dose-rate effectiveness factor (DDREF)
A judged factor that generalises the usually lower biological effectiveness (per
unit of dose) of radiation exposures at low doses and low dose rates as compared with exposures at high doses and high dose rates.
Dose coefficient
Used as a synonym for dose per unit intake of a radioactive substance, but
sometimes also used to describe other coefficients linking quantities or concentrations of activity to doses or dose rates, such as the external dose rate at a
specified distance above a surface with a deposit of a specified activity per unit
area of a specified radionuclide.
dose commitment
A calculational tool, defined as the infinite time integral of the per caput
dose rate E_ due to a specified event, such as a year of a planned activity
causing discharges
dose equivalent
H=DQ
Q= quality factor for specific radiation type
dose of record
The effective dose of a worker assessed by the sum of the measured personal
dose equivalent Hp(10) and the committed effective dose retrospectively determined for the Reference Person
dose-treshold hypothesis
A given dose above background, below which it is hypothesised that the risk of
excess cancer and/or heritable disease is zero. (See also Threshold dose for tissue reactions).
doubling dose
The dose of radiation (Gy) that is required to produce as many heritable mutations as those arising spontaneously in a generation.
excess absolute risk
The rate of disease incidence or mortality in an exposed population minus the
corresponding disease rate in an unexposed population. The excess absolute
risk is often expressed as the additive excess rate per Gy or per Sv
excess relative risk
The rate of disease in an exposed population divided by the rate of disease in an
unexposed population, minus 1.0. This is often expressed as the excess relative
risk per Gy or per Sv.
Exposed individuals
The Commission distinguishes between three categories of exposed individuals:
workers (informed individuals), the public (general individuals), and patients,
including their comforters and carers.
Incidence (incidence rate)
The rate of occurrence of a disease in a population within a specified period of
time, often expressed as the number of cases of a disease arising per 100,000
individuals per year (or per 100,000 person-years).
Induced genomic instability
The induction of an altered cellular state characterised by a persistent increase
over many generations in the spontaneous rate of mutation or other genome-related changes.
intake
Activity that enters the body through the respiratory tract or the gastrointestinal tract or the skin.
– Acute intake
A single intake by inhalation or ingestion, taken to occur instantaneously.
– Chronic intake
An intake over a specified period of time.
LD50
dose that is lethal for half of exposed individuals
life-span study
The long-term cohort study of health effects in the Japanese atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Linear-non-threshold (LNT) model
A dose-response model which is based on the assumption that, in the low dose
range, radiation doses greater than zero will increase the risk of excess cancer
and/or heritable disease in a simple proportionate manner.
Linear-quadratic dose response
A statistical model that expresses the risk of an effect (e.g., disease, death, or
abnormality) as the sum of two components, one proportional to dose (linear
term) and the other one proportional to the square of dose (quadratic
term) .
Mendelian diseases
Heritable diseases attributable to single-gene mutations
Multifactorial diseases
Diseases that are attributable to multiple genetic and environmental factors.
Multistage tumorigenesis
The stepwise acquisition of cellular properties that can lead to the development
of tumour from a single (target) cell.
Mutation component
A quantity that provides a measure of the relative change in disease frequency
per unit relative change in mutation rate, i.e., a measure of responsiveness; MC
values differ for different classes of heritable disease.
Nominal risk coefficient
Sex-averaged and age-at-exposure-averaged lifetime risk estimates for a representative population.
non-cancer diseases
Somatic diseases other than cancer, e.g., cardiovascular disease and cataracts.
NORM
Radioactive material containing no significant amounts of radionuclides other
than naturally occurring radionuclides. Material in which the activity concentrations of the naturally occurring radionuclides have been changed by
some process are included in NORM.
personal dose equivalent
An operational quantity: the dose equivalent in soft tissue (commonly interpreted as the ‘ICRU sphere’) at an appropriate depth, d, below a specified point
on the human body. The unit of personal dose equivalent is joule per kilogram
(J kg1
) and its special name is sievert (Sv). The specified point is usually given
by the position where the individual’s dosimeter is worn.
planned exposure situations
Everyday situations involving the planned operation of sources including decommissioning, disposal of radioactive waste and rehabilitation of the previously
occupied land. Practices in operation are planned exposure situations
principles of protection
A set of principles that apply equally to all controllable exposure situations: the
principle of justification, the principle of optimisation of protection, and the
principle of application of limits on maximum doses in planned situations.
Progenitor cell
Undifferentiated cell capable of limited proliferation.
projected dose
The dose that would be expected to be incurred if no protective measure(s) – were
to be taken.
protection quantities
Dose quantities that the Commission has developed for radiological protection
that allow quantification of the extent of exposure of the human body to ionising radiation from both whole and partial body external irradiation and from
intakes of radionuclides.
what has Q been superseeded by?
Q has been superseded by the radiation weighting factor in the definition of
equivalent dose, but it is still used in calculating the operational dose equivalent
quantities used in monitoring.
radiation detriment
A concept used to quantify the harmful health effects of radiation exposure in
different parts of the body. It is defined by the Commission as a function of several factors, including incidence of radiation-related cancer or heritable effects,
lethality of these conditions, quality of life, and years of life lost owing to these
conditions.
Radiation weighting factor, wR
A dimensionless factor by which the organ or tissue absorbed dose is multiplied
to reflect the higher biological effectiveness of high-LET radiations compared
with low-LET radiations. It is used to derive the equivalent dose from the absorbed dose averaged over a tissue or organ.
reference level
In emergency or existing controllable exposure situations, this represents the level of dose or risk, above which it is judged to be inappropriate to plan to allow
exposures to occur, and below which optimisation of protection should be
implemented. The chosen value for a reference level will depend upon the prevailing circumstances of the exposure under consideration.
relative life lost
The ratio of the proportion of observed years of life lost among people dying of
a disease in an exposed population and the corresponding proportion in a similar population without the exposure.
relative survival
The ratio of the proportion of cancer patients who survive for a specified number of years (e.g., 5 years) following diagnosis to the corresponding proportion
in a comparable set of cancer-free individuals.
representative person
An individual receiving a dose that is representative of the more highly exposed
individuals in the population (see Publication 101, ICRP 2006a). This term is
the equivalent of, and replaces, ‘average member of the critical group’ described in previous ICRP Recommendations.
residual dose
The dose expected to be incurred after protective measure(s) have beenfully
implemented (or a decision has been taken not to implement any protective
measures).
risk constraint
This risk is a function of the probability of an
unintended event causing a dose, and the probability of detriment due to that
dose.
sensitivity analysis
This aims to quantify how the results from a model depend upon the different
variables included in it.
source region
An anatomical region within the reference phantom body which contains the
radionuclide following its intake. The region may be an organ, a tissue, the contents of the gastrointestinal tract or urinary bladder, or the surfaces of tissues
as in the skeleton, the alimentary tract, and the respiratory tract.
Specific absorbed fraction
The fraction of energy of that emitted as a specified radiation type in a source
region, S, that is absorbed in 1 kg of a target tissue, T.
statistical power
The probability that an epidemiological study will detect a given level of elevated risk with a specified degree of confidence.
stem cell
Non-differentiated, pluripotent cell, capable of unlimited cell division
Stochastic effects of radiation
Malignant disease and heritable effects for which the probability of an effect
occurring, but not its severity, is regarded as a function of dose without
threshold.
tissue weighting factor
factor of each tissue (add up to 1) for effective dose
The factor by which the equivalent dose in a tissue or organ T is weighted to
represent the relative contribution of that tissue or organ to the total health
detriment resulting from uniform irradiation of the body
transport of risk
Taking a risk coefficient estimated for one population and applying it to another population with different characteristics.
unit of rem
RBE-weighted sum of absorbed dose in rads
uses quality factor
eventually replaced by Sv
difference between quality factor and radiation weighting factor
quality factor only considers LET
weightinf factors are based on RBE at inducing stochastic effects at low doses
weighting factors replaced Q- dose equivalence becamse equivalent dose
2 types of hardmful radiation effects
High doses will
cause deterministic effects, often of an acute
nature, which only appear if the dose exceeds a threshold value. Both high and low
doses may cause stochastic effects (cancer or heritable effects), which may be
observed as a statistically detectable increase in the incidences of these effects occurring long after exposure.
deterministic effects (harmful tissue reactions) due in large part to the killing/ malfunction of cells following high doses; and stochastic effects, i.e., cancer and heritable effects involving either cancer development in exposed individuals owing to mutation of somatic cells or heritable disease in their offspring owing to mutation of reproductive (germ) cells
what is the system of protection based on?
a) reference
anatomical and physiological models of the human being for the assessment of
radiation doses, b) studies at the molecular and cellular level, c) experimental animal studies, and d) epidemiological studies