Monitoring of medical radiation exposure among the population in Switzerland - 2023 update

Imaging techniques are indispensable for diagnosis and patient treatment, but they also pose health risks due to the use of ionizing radiation. For this reason, the FOPH has been regularly monitoring the Swiss population’s medical radiation exposure since 1998. The goal is to reliably determine the contributions of the various imaging modalities (X-rays, mammography, dental imaging, CT, fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine imaging) to the effective dose per capita. To this end, the frequency of all examinations performed is recorded, and their average effective dose is estimated. This allows emerging changes and trends to be identified at an early stage. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) uses the data for scientific purposes. The dataset contains the results of the survey for the year 2023.