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EURALOC

European epidemiological study on radiation-induced lens opacities among interventional cardiologists

EURALOC focuses on low dose radiation effects on the lens of the eye. Research on formation of lens opacities following radiation exposure has been an area of intense interest. Several issues regarding the relationship between radiation dose, lens opacities and cataract development remain unclear and there is an urgent need for high-quality epidemiological studies at low doses. The EURALOC project combines epidemiological, ophthalmological and dosimetric research expertise to address effects of radiation on the lens of the eye and to determine the dose-response relationship at low doses.

Euraloc-logo
SCKCEN Euraloc eye-dosimetry (2020)

Objectives

The contribution of interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists in this project provided a scientific basis for the determination of the low-dose threshold for lens opacities and had an impact on the improvement of radiation protection and dose reduction procedures for medical staff in the clinical environment.

With the revised lower dose threshold, radiation effect on the eye lens has become one of the major concerns in relation to occupational, medical and public exposures. The European EURALOC study aimed at clarifying the dose-response relationship and in the meantime provided some practical tools to reduce occupational exposure of medical staff.

SCK CEN - Dosimetrie (2019)

European cohort

Twelve European countries participated to this European joint epidemiological project by recruiting interventional cardiologists. A strength of the European cohort was the use of a common protocol, ensuring the comparability of information, regarding confounders for cataract and occupational history for retrospective dose assessment and the possibility to pool all data in one large European cohort for joined analysis. A European cohort of about 440 interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists and an unexposed group of about 285 persons were foreseen.

Euraloc has been accepted within the first Open Research Call from the OPERRA project (Open Project for the European Radiation Research Area - OPERRA-2013 Grant agreement number 60498)

Consult the specific EURALOC research reports on our public institutional repository.

To the publications

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