Foetal Radiation Dose and Risk from Diagnostic Radiology Procedures: A Multinational Study

In diagnostic radiology examinations there is a benefit that the patient derives from the resulting diagnosis. Given that so many examinations are performed each year, it is inevitable that there will be occasions when an examination(s) may be inadvertently performed on pregnant patients or occasionally it may become clinically necessary to perform an examination(s) on a pregnant patient. In all these circumstances it is necessary to request an estimation of the foetal dose and risk. We initiated a study to investigate fetal doses from different countries. Exposure techniques on 367 foetuses from 414 examinations were collected and investigated. The FetDoseV4 program was used for all dose and risk estimations. The radiation doses received by the 367 foetuses ranges: <0.001–21.9 mGy depending on examination and technique. The associated probability of induced hereditary effect ranges: <1 in 200000000 (5 × 10(−9)) to 1 in 10000 (1 × 10(−4)) and the risk of childhood cancer ranges <1 in 12500000 (8 × 10(−8)) to 1 in 500 (2 × 10(−3)). The data indicates that foetal doses from properly conducted diagnostic radiology examinations will not result in any deterministic effect and a negligible risk of causing radiation induced hereditary effect in the descendants of the unborn child.