Cumulative exposure to ionising radiation from diagnostic imaging tests: a 12-year follow-up population-based analysis in Spain

What is it about?

The use of ionising radiation in medicine provides valuable diagnostic information that undoubtedly benefits many patients. However, this radiation is also the greatest source of artificial radiation exposure.
We aimed to quantify the number of all radiological investigations performed in a cohort of patients in routine practice to calculate each patient’s cumulative radiation exposure and the recurrent tests during a 12-year study period, according to sex. age, focusing on children and young adults (0 to 20 years old) and imaging test. In addition, we identified the clinical context of patients with potentially high cumulative radiation risks.
A total of 4,844 (3.1%) people received cumulative doses between 50-100 mSv and 2,298 (1.5%) people received doses greater than 100 mSv during the 12-year period of study. Considering only the doses associated with CT, 2.5% of the patients in the 0 to 20 age group received doses above 50 mSv. Moreover, the rate of recurrent examinations was high, especially in older patients, but also relevant in the 0 to 20 age group. These data could help clinicians to make an informed decision when asking for each imaging test, which would lead to lower cumulative lifetime radiation, and consequently a reduction in associated risks.


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