Estimated collective effective dose to the population from nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures in Croatia: A comparison of 2010 and 2015

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study presents national surveys of patient exposure from nuclear medicine (NM) diagnostic procedures in 2010 and 2015 in the Republic of Croatia.MethodsThe survey was performed according to the European Commission Dose DataMed (DDM) project methodology. 28 most frequent NM diagnostic procedures were identified. Data about frequencies of procedures and average administered activities of radioisotopes used in those procedures were collected. Average administered activities were converted to effective doses according to the dose conversion coefficients. Then the collective effective dose to the population and an effective dose per capita were calculated based on the number of the most frequent NM diagnostic procedures and the average effective dose per procedure.ResultsIn 2010, 41200 NM diagnostic procedures led to 146.7 manSv collective effective dose to the population and in 2015, 42000 NM diagnostic procedures led to 146.8 manSv collective effective dose to the population. The frequencies of NM diagnostic procedures were 9.7 and 9.8 annually per 1000 population with 34.1 μSv and 34.2 μSv effective dose per capita for 2010 and 2015, respectively. The main contributors to the annual collective dose from NM in Croatia are examinations of the bone, heart, thyroid and PET/CT tumour diagnostic. Average administered activities have not changed considerably from 2010 to 2015. Nevertheless, within the frequency of some of the procedures, significant changes were found in five-year period.ConclusionsFrequencies, average administered activities and collective effective dose to the population from NM diagnostic procedures in Croatia are comparable to the values reported by other European surveys. Changes were found between 2010 and 2015 and we intend to perform this study periodically to identify possible trends, but also to raise awareness about the potential dose optimization.

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“…Bone im ag ing with 99m Tc - phosphonates is the most com monly per formed nuclear med i cine di ag nos tic pro ce dure at UH Rijeka and makes up over 30 % of the to tal num ber of di ag nos tic nu clear med i cine ex am i na tions. Re sults are in ac cor dance with ef fec tive doses for adults from nu clear med i cine ex am i na tions presented by Mett ler et al [17], Kralik et al [18] and Avramova-Cholakova et al [19]. The ex cep tion is thy roid me tas ta sis im ag ing us ing 131 I. Namely, in the case of thy roid ab la tion, the pre sented ef fec tive dose for thy roid me tas ta sis im ag ing was cal cu lated us ing the con ver sion fac tor for the biokinetic model with blocked thy roid and oral ad min is tra tion [5].…”

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