The Genetic Hazard to the Population from Radiation, particularly from the point of view of Diagnostic Examination

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Abstract
This topic was discussed at a meeting of the Institute on February 21, 1952, when papers were read by R. W. Stanford, M.A., A.Inst.P., of Guy's Hospital, S. B. Osborn, B.Sc., A.Inst.P., of University College Hospital, and Miss A. Howard, Ph.D., of the M.R.C. Radiotherapeutic Research Unit at Hammersmith Hospital. Mr. Stanford described measurements made on an unselected group of patients undergoing various types of diagnostic X-ray investigations, with the object of deducing the mean radiation dose received by their reproductive organs. The measurements were made with ionization chambers, which, for males, were placed in close proximity to the scrotum. For females (except during pelvimetries, when an ionization chamber was inserted into the posterior fornix and the dose recorded was taken to be that received by the ovaries) a skin dose was measured on the abdomen anterior to the ovary and the dose to the ovary itself computed. Within a single type of diagnostic examination differences in the dose were found, these being caused by variations in the physical dimensions and posture of the patients, the X-ray apparatus and the radiological techniques employed. Over a range of 20 different types of examination the mean gonad dose was found to vary from 0·2 mr during chest radiography of males (1·2 mr for females) to 27 r during hysterosalpingography.

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