World Health Organization (WHO) and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) are co-sponsoring a global conference on radiation safety, organised by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that has convened in Vienna this week to review and strengthen radiation protection in medical settings.
The event, named International Conference on Radiation Protection in Medicine: X Ray Vision (running 8–12 December 2025), gathers more than 650 participants from over 120 countries and 22 international organizations, including health professionals, regulatory authorities, patient-advocacy groups and researchers.
The conference aims to assess the progress made since the 2012 Bonn Call for Action — a global commitment to improve radiation safety in medicine — and to chart a shared vision for the next decade of radiation protection.
Participants are reviewing how medical advances — including new imaging technologies, radiopharmaceuticals, digital systems and artificial-intelligence enhanced diagnostic and treatment tools — are changing exposure patterns for patients and health workers. Given these shifts, the conference seeks to meet emerging challenges by updating radiation-safety protocols, optimizing radiation doses, reinforcing justification for radiological procedures, and strengthening safety culture in medical institutions worldwide.
Agenda items include ensuring appropriate use of radiation in diagnostics and therapy, improving protection for patients and staff during procedures, learning from instances of unintended exposure, and exploring how AI and other technologies can support real-time monitoring, predictive modelling and safer medical radiation practices.
Given that globally over 4.2 billion radiological examinations and 6.2 million radiation therapy treatments are performed each year, strengthening radiation protection standards in medicine remains critical to safeguard patients, health-care workers and the public from harmful effects while ensuring continued access to life-saving diagnostic and therapeutic services.
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