Effective Dose (EfD) is used to describe the risk of radiation-induced:

• A. Miscarriage
• B. Desquamation
• C. Cataracts
• D. Carcinogenesis

Answer: (D)

Effective Dose is a single metric that combines the dose to each organ with tissue weighting factors to reflect how sensitive each tissue is to radiation-induced stochastic effects. The main purpose is to estimate the probability that exposure will lead to cancer (carcinogenesis) and, to a lesser extent, hereditary effects, enabling comparison of risks across different procedures or exposures. Because the focus is on probabilistic outcomes rather than immediate tissue damage, it describes cancer risk rather than deterministic endpoints. Deterministic outcomes like miscarriage, desquamation, or cataracts involve dose thresholds and local tissue damage that occur at higher, specific doses and aren’t what EfD is designed to summarize.