International Labour Office (ILO) Reference Radiographs

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of the Centers for Disease and Prevention is collaborating with the Labour Inspection, Labour Administration and Occupational Safety and Health Branch of the International Labour Office (ILO) in developing a set of digital reference radiographs for the ILO International Classification of Radiographs of Pneumoconiosis (ILO Classification). The current ILO Classification depends on 22 standard reference radiographs that are used to formally identify and characterize pneumoconiosis and related pulmonary abnormalities arising from occupational exposure. The original standards were based on film radiography, but the advent of digital radiography has led to the need for reference standards based on digitally-acquired images. NIOSH is assisting the ILO in the process of identifying such digital images. For this purpose, NIOSH is requesting trained users of the ILO Classification (e.g., NIOSH B-Readers [1] and other such experts) to submit comments regarding any of the current standard reference images that are felt to be deficient and for which improvements could be made. The current structure and format of the ILO Classification is to remain unchanged at the present time. NIOSH is not soliciting comments on the ILO Classification itself. Comments received on the ILO Classification will be considered irrelevant to the purpose of this docket.