The use of effective dose for medical procedures is inappropriate

The quantity "effective dose" was originally introduced as a way to quantify the potential detrimental stochastic cancer and hereditary effectiveness of nonuniform radiation exposures of populations of workers and the general public for radiation protection purposes. It was not intended to be used to represent patient exposures, yet over the past decade, it has become commonplace to specify doses to patients and patient populations undergoing imaging procedures in terms of effective dose. It has been proposed that this is not appropriate, and this is the premise debated in this month's Point/Counterpoint. © 2010 Am. Assoc. Phys. Med.