title: Estimating the population dose from nuclear medicine examinations towards establishing diagnostic reference levels.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study conducted a review on nuclear medicine (NM) services in Mazandaran Province with a view to establish adult diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) and provide updated data on population radiation exposure resulting from diagnostic NM procedures.
  
  
  METHODS
  The data were collected from all centers in all cities of Mazandaran Province in the North of Iran from March 2014 to February 2015. The 75(th) percentile of the distribution and the average administered activity (AAA) were calculated and the average effective dose per examination, collective effective dose to the population and annual effective dose per capita were estimated using dose conversion factors. The gathered data were analyzed via SPSS (version 18) software using descriptive statistics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Based on the data of this study, the collective effective dose was 95.628 manSv, leading to a mean effective dose of 0.03 mSv per capita. It was also observed that the myocardial perfusion was the most common procedure (50%). The 75(th) percentile of the distribution of administered activity (AA) represents the DRL. The AAA and the 75(th) percentile of the distribution of AA are slightly higher than DRL of most European countries.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Myocardial perfusion is responsible for most of the collective effective dose and it is better to establish national DRLs for myocardial perfusion and review some DRL values through the participation of NM specialists in the future.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Niksirat
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali Shabestani
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Monfared
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics and Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Reza
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Deevband
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Mehrangiz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amiri
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gholami
keywords: Collective effective dose; diagnostic reference levels; nuclear medicine; radiation exposure