The collective effective doses to the population from X-ray and nuclear medicine (NM) examinations in Finland in 2008 and 2009, respectively, were estimated. The estimated collective effective dose per inhabitant was 0.45 mSv from X-ray examinations and 0.03 mSv from NM examinations. The collective effective doses per inhabitant have not changed substantially during the last 10 y. However, proportional dose due to CT examinations has increased from 50 % in 2005 to 58 % in 2009 of the total collective effective dose from all X-ray examinations and proportional dose of PET examinations from 7 to 13 % of the total collective effective dose from NM examinations. The collective effective dose from conventional plain radiography was over 20 % higher when estimated using the new (ICRP 103) tissue weighting factors than that obtained using the old (ICRP 60) tissue weighting factors.

The pixels in digital detectors used in x-ray imaging can be considered as small dose meters. In mammography, the image detector area is commonly only partly covered by tissue and the incident air kerma could be monitored by using pixel values from the detector elements in the unattenuated primary beam area. The measured air kerma could be used for patient dose estimation. The air kerma and radiation quality dependence of the response of pixel values within a large exposure range for two direct digital detector types was experimentally investigated for this purpose. Using these calibration results, air kerma was measured from clinical images and compared with tube output calculation. The differences between the two methods were typically below 2% and measurements based on pixel values can therefore be recommended.