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Review
. 2023 Feb 8;23(4):1918.
doi: 10.3390/s23041918.

Sievert or Gray: Dose Quantities and Protection Levels in Emergency Exposure

Chiara Ferrari  1 , Guglielmo Manenti  2 , Andrea Malizia  2
Affiliations
Review

Sievert or Gray: Dose Quantities and Protection Levels in Emergency Exposure

Chiara Ferrari et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Mitigation or even elimination of adverse effects caused by ionizing radiation is the main scope of the radiation protection discipline. The interaction of radiation with living matter is quantified and correlated with biological effects by dose. The Sievert is the most well-known quantity, and it is used with the equivalent and effective dose to minimize stochastic effects. However, Gray is the reference quantity for sizing tissue reactions that could occur under high-exposure conditions such as in a radiation emergency. The topics addressed in this review are the choice to move from Sievert to Gray, how the operational quantities for environmental and individual monitoring of the detectors should consider such a change of units, and why reference levels substitute dose levels in emergency exposure.

Keywords: dose quantities; dose reference levels; radiation emergency.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relationship between the protection quantities of ICRP Publication 103 [5] and the operational ones of ICRU according to (a), the current scheme; (b) Report 95 [7], the new proposed operational quantities.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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MeSH terms