Recent achievements in external radiation dosimetry

Some of the more relevant recent achievements and developments in the field of external radiation dosimetry are reviewed in this presentation. Among them, topics related to personal dosimetry, as the relative role of active and passive methods and the features of some recently proposed new methods. Electronic personal dosemeters and Optically Stimulated Luminescence, OSL, have already accredited their adequacy for practical work, their features and performance are compared with more conventional methods as TLD. The special situation of personal dosimetry for the protection of the staff in complex interventional radiology procedures, is also commented. Underestimations as well as overestimations of the effective dose are to be avoided without a clear solution for the moment respect to the number and position of the personal dosimeters. Some recent recently results published related to single and double dosimetry are discussed. The situation of neutron dosimetry, both area and personal, is reviewed following the recently published results obtained by a European research consortium (Evidos). While the situation of area dosimetry is more or less comfortable, personal methods still present drawbacks and limitations particularly with respect to the energy dependence of response. The impact of computational methods for practically every area of dosimetry is another topic included in this Key Note that finishes with some reference to the new 2007 ICRP recommendations regarding the dosimetry system.