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How does radiation exposure from typical use of medical imaging compare with background radiation or accepted occupational exposures? In this analysis, authors used administrative data from a large insurer to evaluate cardiac imaging use in almost one million adults (age, <65) and estimated the effective dose of radiation from such procedures.
From 2005 to 2007, 90,121 patients (9.5%) underwent at least one cardiac imaging procedure, with a mean cumulative effective dose of 16.4 millisieverts (range, 1.5–189.5 mSv). Most of the effective dose (74%) came from myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). About half of all cardiac imaging procedures — and three quarters of MPIs and cardiac computed tomography scans — were performed in physicians' office…