A systematic review of occupational radiation individual dose monitoring among healthcare workers exposed in Africa.

Dosimetric monitoring is useful to requested limit exposures to ionizing radiation in medical occupational settings, and reduce subsequent health risks. Scientific literatures, such as UNSCEAR report, 2017 and International Atomic Energy Agency Report, 2014, updated informations on this subject, whereas, such a few African works were found. That's the reasons why we undertake this study, which consists in summarizing existing informations on monitoring external radiation exposure doses for whole body, from medical workers on this continent. Using standard terms and combine the different keywords research for radiation dose monitoring among radiology healthcare workers in Africa, from the titles, abstracts, and full texts, we found 3139 articles in PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar and INIS databases. Two reviewers screened the retrieved publications based on predefined eligibility criteria to identify relevant studies, extract key information from each, and summarize data in table. A total of twenty potentially relevant articles were identified. Among these twenty articles, fifteen reported the overall average annual effective dose. Studies included in this systematic review represent an inventory of the radiation protection of medical workers in various countries of Africa, with a focus on the monitoring of occupational radiation exposure. The size of studied populations ranged between 81 and 5152 Occupational Exposed Workers. The mean annual effective doses ranged from 0.44 to 8.20 mSv in all specialities of Medical sectors, while diagnostic radiology ranged from 0.07 to 4.37 mSv. For the nuclear medicine and radiotherapy from medical groups, the mean annual effective dose varied between 0.56 and 6.30 mSv. Industrial and Research/Teaching sectors's data which are presented in Table 2b for comparison, varied between 0.38 to 19.40 mSv. In conclusion, more studies implemented on dosimetric monitoring in Africa are needed to get a real picture of occupational exposure in this continent.