Information et communication en médecine nucléaire : vers une nécessaire harmonisation

Abstract

Because of excesses in the speech related to ionizing radiations which leads sometimes to totally irrational and counterproductive behavior, and because, for some, precaution rhymes with nonsense, scintigraphy with phobia, microsievert with cancer or because the slightest exposure of a pregnancy rhymes with stress, of a young child with agony or a professional with fear, the time has come for the whole community of nuclear medicine to be aware fatal effects of such excesses for its future and to react in order to radiation with communication, radioactivity with objectivity and nuclear medicine with unitarian speech. The purpose of this article is to provide some elements of think, analysis and language concerning radiation protection in nuclear medicine with the will to prevent the noxious effects of a communication which would be too much based on the precautionary principle. On the contrary, the goal is to insist on the positive and objective aspects of the specialty within the framework of the balance clinical benefit/risk. The most important point which is proposed consists in eliminating of recommendations for patients any measure of eviction after a scintigraphy including for young children and pregnant women. Indeed, the radiation exposure for the entourage of a patient who leaves the nuclear medicine department is always very below 1 mSv and often close to the natural radiation exposure.