Estimating the population dose from nuclear medicine examinations towards establishing diagnostic reference levels

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: This study conducted a review on nuclear medicine (NM) services in Mazandaran Province with a view to establish adult diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) and provide updated data on population radiation exposure resulting from diagnostic NM procedures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data were collected from all centers in all cities of Mazandaran Province in the North of Iran from March 2014 to February 2015. The 75(th) percentile of the distribution and the average administered activity (AAA) were calculated and the average effective dose per examination, collective effective dose to the population and annual effective dose per capita were estimated using dose conversion factors. The gathered data were analyzed via SPSS (version 18) software using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Based on the data of this study, the collective effective dose was 95.628 manSv, leading to a mean effective dose of 0.03 mSv per capita. It was also observed that the myocardial perfusion was the most common procedure (50%). The 75(th) percentile of the distribution of administered activity (AA) represents the DRL. The AAA and the 75(th) percentile of the distribution of AA are slightly higher than DRL of most European countries. CONCLUSIONS: Myocardial perfusion is responsible for most of the collective effective dose and it is better to establish national DRLs for myocardial perfusion and review some DRL values through the participation of NM specialists in the future.