Effective dose is a measurement that can be used to evaluate the risks of:

• A. Short-term radiation effects
• B. Long-term radiation effects
• C. Short- and long-term radiation effects
• D. No predictive value for radiation effects

Answer: (B)

Effective dose combines the doses to different organs with weighting factors that reflect how sensitive each tissue is to radiation. This creates a single number that represents the overall lifetime risk of stochastic effects, mainly cancer and heritable changes, from the exposure. Because these risks accrue over time and vary by tissue sensitivity, effective dose is used to evaluate long-term radiation risks and to compare the overall burden of different imaging procedures. It doesn’t predict immediate, short-term damage that has a threshold, such as skin reddening or radiation sickness, which are deterministic effects linked to high, local doses. So, the metric is best used for assessing long-term radiation risks.