AND SEALED SOURCES POSITION STATEMENT OF THE HEALTH PHYSICS SOCIETY*

The Health Physics Society (HPS) has adopted a position that a dose-based criterion is appropriate to govern the release of patients who were treated with therapeutic quantities of radiopharmaceuticals or who received permanent implants of sealed radioactive sources for therapeutic purposes. The HPS considers the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) patient release dose criteria in 10 CFR 35.75 to provide ample public health safety measures. The NRC patient release dose criteria (U.S. NRC 2001) allow patients to be released if the effective dose to any other individual is not likely to exceed 5 mSv per patient and require that the patient be given instructions, including written instructions, on actions recommended to maintain doses to other individuals as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) if the total effective dose equivalent to any other individual is likely to exceed 1 mSv per patient. According to the HPS position statement “Radiation Risk in Perspective, ” these dose criteria are well below the lowest dose that justifies quantitative estimation of health risks (HPS 2010). Application of the dose criteria for release of patients should properly balance public-safety issues with the patient’s access to treatment with therapeutic quantities of radiopharmaceuticals and sealed sources. In response to comments on the 1997 10 CFR 35.75 rulemaking, the NRC stated the patient release dose criterion of 5 mSv applies to each patient release based on NRC staff’s review that multiple administrations in the same year to the same patient were not expected to exceed 5 mSv to any other individual (U.S. NRC 1997a)