The Importance of Radiation Risk Assessment

In its Publication 26, Ref.[1] the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) reviewed the types of harm that might result from radiation exposure at low dose, and gave estimates of the frequency with which the major such effects might occur. For the induction of cancer or of leukaemia, the reviews made by the Commission's Committee on Radiation Effects, and the extensive survey by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) Ref.[2] had examined the substantial amount of new epidemiological evidence on the frequency with which malignancies were induced in human tissues, by absorbed doses of up to a few gray*. A number of estimates were therefore available, not only of the total number of malignancies that might result from whole-body exposure, but also of the number of cancers to be expected when individual body organs or tissues were selectively irradiated, for example as a result of the intake of radionuclides.