SSDL Newsletter, No. 58, June 2010

This is a Special Issue of the SSDL Newsletter. After forty years of operation, the service has verified the calibration of approximately 8000 radiotherapy beams in about 1700 hospitals worldwide. Several hundreds of dosimetry deviations have been identified and reconciled, thus avoiding potential dose misadministration to patients. An announcement of the upcoming International Dosimetry Symposium on Standards, Applications and Quality Assurance in Medical Radiation Dosimetry (IDOS) is included on page 5. IDOS will be held at IAEA Headquarters in Vienna during 9-12 November 2010. The IAEA's Dosimetry and Medical Radiation Physics Section focuses on services provided to Member States through the IAEA/WHO SSDL Network and on a system of dose quality audits. The measurement standards of Member States are calibrated, free of charge, at the IAEA's Dosimetry Laboratory. The audits are performed through the IAEA/WHO TLD postal dose audit service for SSDLs and radiotherapy centres. The IAEA Calibration and Measurement Capabilities (CMCs) have been reviewed and published in the CIPM's (Comite International des Poids et Mesures) Appendix C. The Dosimetry Laboratory's Quality Management System has been reviewed and accepted by the Joint Committee of the Regional Metrology Organizations and the BIPM (JCRB)