European trends in radiology: investigating factors affecting the number of examinations and the effective dose

The advances in technology have led to a growing trend in population exposure to radiation emerging from the invention of high-dose procedures. It is, for example, estimated that annually 1.2% of cancers are induced by radiological scans in Norway. This study aims to investigate and discuss the frequency and dose trends of radiological examinations in Europe. European Commission (EC) launched projects to gain information for medical exposures in 2004 and 2011. In this study, the European Commission Radiation Protection (RP) reports No. 154 and 180 have been reviewed. The RP 154 countries’ data were extracted from both reports, and the average variation trend of the number of examinations and effective doses were studied. According to the results, plain radiography and fluoroscopy witnessed a reduction in the frequency and effective dose per examination. Nevertheless, European collective dose encountered an average increase of 23%, which resulted from a growing tendency for implementation of high-dose procedures such as CT scans and interventional examinations. It is worth noting that most of the CT procedures have undergone an increase in effective dose per examination. Although demand and dose per examination in some radiological procedures (such as intravenous urography (IVU) have been reduced, population collective dose is still rising due to the increasing demand for CT scan procedures. Even though the individual risks are not considerable, it can, in a large scale, threaten the health of the people at the present time. Due to this fact, better justification should be addressed so as to reduce population exposure.