The Horizon 2020 MEDIRAD project on implications of medical low dose radiation exposure aimed to enhance the scientific bases and clinical practice of radiation protection in the medical field and thereby addressed the need to understand and evaluate the health effects of low dose ionising radiation exposure from diagnostic and therapeutic imaging and from off-target effects in radiotherapy.

MEDIRAD pursued three major operational objectives:

• Improvement of organ dose estimation and registration to inform clinical practice, optimise doses, set recommendations and provide adequate dosimetry for clinical-epidemiological studies of effects of medical radiation.
• Evaluation of the effects of medical exposures, focusing on the two major endpoints of public health relevance: cardiovascular effects of low to moderate doses of radiation from radiotherapy in breast cancer treatment incl. understanding of mechanisms; and long-term effects on cancer risk of low doses from CT in children.
• Development of science-based consensus policy recommendations for the effective protection of patients, workers and the general public.

The 57-month MEDIRAD project brought together 34 partner institutions from 14 European countries. The multi-disciplinary consortium included clinical experts, scientists and policy makers in the fields of medical, radiation protection and nuclear research from hospitals, universities and major research centres across Europe. The project was coordinated and managed by EIBIR, and Prof. Guy Frija (Université de Paris) acted as Clinical Coordinator and Prof. Elisabeth Cardis (ISGlobal) as Scientific Coordinator of the project.

For any questions about the MEDIRAD project, please contact Ms. Ulrike Mayerhofer-Schirmer of EIBIR.