Estimated CT Dose Contribution per Scan Type with Estimated Effective Dose to Patients
| CT category | Range for effective dose (per scan) (mSv) | Effective dose (per scan) used in calculation (mSv) |
| Head | 0.9–4 | 2* |
| Chest | 4–18 | 7* |
| Abdomen and pelvis | 3–25 | 10† |
| Extremity | 0.1–1 | 0.1‡ |
| Virtual colonography | 5–15 | 10* |
| Whole-body screening | 5–15 | 10§ |
| Calcium scoring | 1–12 | 2‖ |
| Angiography: head | 1–10 | 5§ |
| Angiography: heart | 5–32 | 20¶# |
| Other scans | 1–10 | 5§ |
↵* Mettler et al. (13) reported these data.
↵† American Association of Physicists in Medicine (14) reported range of 8–14 mSv. Brix et al. (15) reported 9.7 mSv for multislice CT and 10.3 mSv for single-slice CT. Selection of 10 mSv reflects current clinical practice.
↵‡ Value is lower end of range of effective doses. In absence of single citation listing actual values, selected value was based on calculated effective doses from scan techniques used in routine extremity-CT protocols.
↵§ Midpoint of range of effective doses was selected.
↵‖ American Association of Physicists in Medicine (14) reported range of 1–3 mSv; midpoint of that range was selected.
↵¶ Hurwitz et al. (16) and Javadi et al. (17) reported results from 2 large academic centers.
↵# Hausleiter et al. (18) reported that median value of 12 mSv was more representative of current practice.
Adapted with permission of (1).