NCRP Report: CT-based radiation exposure in U.S. population soars

The amount of radiation dose from clinical imaging exams experienced by the U.S. public may have increased more than 600% in the last two decades, most of it due to CT, according to preliminary findings from a study released at the 2007 National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements meeting in Arlington, VA.

The estimated collective effective dose that the U.S population received from diagnostic procedures in 1980 was 0.54 mSv per capita. That total increased to 3.2 mSv in 2006.

In that 26-year period, the collective annual dose rose 650%, from 124,000 person-Sv annually in 1980 to about 930,000 person-Sv in 2006, said principal investigator Dr. Fred A. Mettler Jr., chief of radiology and nuclear medicine at the New Mexico Federal Regional Medical Center.

Read Source Article