Table 3.

Typical effective doses and equivalent of natural background radiation time for different imaging procedures used in Germany [7]

Imaging procedure	Typical effective dose (ED) in (mSv)	Approx. natural background radiation (for similar ED)
Chest PA	0.02	3 days
Abdomen AP/PA	0.34	2 months
CT-chest	5.1	2.4 years
CT-abdomen and pelvis	11	5.2 years
Coronary angiography	3.1	1.5 years
Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)	6.4	3 years
Endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) of the aorta	17	8 years
Lung perfusion scintigraphy 160 MBq Tc-99 m	1.8	10 months
Positron emission tomography (oncology) (350 MBq F-18-FDG)	4.6	2.2 years

The effective doses provided do not account for individual factors such as a patient’s sex, age or constitution. The dose uncertainty may exceed a factor of 5. Average natural radiation exposure in Germany: 2.1 mSv per year