[Acquisition and assessment of patient exposure in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine]

Abstract

The regular annual monitoring of patient exposure in radiation diagnostics, as performed by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), plays an important role in evaluating the awareness of radiological quality and safety in Germany and the risk-benefit optimization for patients. For the reporting year 1997, X-ray diagnostics resulted in a mean effective dose of 2 +/- 0.5 mSv per head of population. The underlying frequency of medical X-ray examinations was approximately 136 million, i.e., 1.7 examinations annually per head of population. In terms of nuclear medicine diagnostics, the patients exposure amounted to approximately 0.15 mSv effective dose per head of population. In this case, the number of examinations amounted to approximately 4 million, corresponding to a frequency of approximately 0.05 examinations annually per head of population. The paper discusses factors influencing the calculation of exposure, as well as the lack of an internationally accepted protocol to evaluate patient exposure.