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File:Portable_PET_1.6.jpg|Figure 1: A portable PET scanner being used for diagnosis of the left hind-leg of a horse (Photo courtesy of Dr. Spriet, UC Davis Veterinary Medicine, USA).
File:LINAC_dog.jpg|Figure 2: Linear accelerator treatment of a dog with a brain tumour (Photo courtesy of J. Benoit).
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→Veterinary Medicine
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[[file:Portable_PET_1.6.jpg|200px|thumb|'''Figure 8:''' A portable PET scanner being used for diagnosis of the left hind-leg of a horse (Photo courtesy of Dr. Spriet, UC Davis Veterinary Medicine, USA)]]
[[file:LINAC_dog.jpg|200px|thumb|'''Figure 9:''' Linear accelerator treatment of a dog with a brain tumour (Photo courtesy of J. Benoit)]]
Just as in human medicine, the use of ionising radiation in veterinary care serves to provide or assist in providing a diagnosis, to guide an interventional procedure or to provide a direct radiation-induced therapeutic benefit. The use of diagnostic radiology is widespread in veterinary care, in veterinary clinics or in private practices. Smaller companion animals are typically radiographed at the practice or clinic, whereas larger animals may also be radiographed at farms, zoos, or at riding and selling stables. Film-screen radiography is being replaced more and more by digital imaging techniques; CT and CBCT scanning have become routinely available in larger animal clinics. Fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures are also used in veterinary medicine. In these procedures, the radiation serves to provide dynamic, real-time images. The images will guide the anatomically correct delivery of treatments and will often allow real-time visualization of the results of the intervention.
ICRP has recently established a task group (TG110) to develop recommendations on the protection of veterinary patients, veterinarians and their co-workers, animal owners and handlers providing care to the patients or comforting them. Radiation exposures to the veterinarians and their co-workers, as well as owners and handlers of the animal can be very different. Radiation dose resulting from a single examination is typically very low, but veterinarians and their co-workers performing multiple examinations may receive non-negligible dose. Some applications that are newer in veterinary medicine, such as CT-scanning, interventional radiology procedures, nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures and radiotherapy procedures, have the potential to cause much higher exposures and should therefore be performed with explicit attention to radiation protection. In the case of nuclear medicine procedures and the use of small implantable radioactive sources for radiotherapy purposes, radioactive substances and objects may be spread outside of the veterinary clinics and thus become an additional risk factor in the human environment.
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