Challenges, Strategies and Paradigms for Radiation Protection in Medicine: the horizon to 2040

Abstract

The International Conference on Radiation Protection in Medicine: X Ray Vision (RADPROM 2025), held in Vienna from December 8–12, 2025, outlined new paradigms for radiation protection (RP) in medical practice, shifting the focus from mere technical optimization to a holistic, patient-centered approach. The event, which served as a review of advancements since the Bonn Conference (2012), highlighted the complexity of low-dose risk, the worrying increase in cumulative dose in patients, and the urgent need to integrate ethics, communication, and human factors into radiological safety. Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged as a tool that combines advantages and risks, being a powerful vector for individualization and accessibility, but also a generator of new regulatory and ethical challenges, such as biases and overconfidence. The conference's conclusions, summarized in the "Emerging Imperatives" and the "Bonn+" priorities, point to a future where PR is a shared responsibility, requiring global and multidisciplinary partnerships, low-cost innovation, and, fundamentally, the recognition of "humanity" as the central pillar of medicine. In this article, we highlight some points discussed at the Conference that we consider important, but which do not represent institutional positions.