The role of effective dose in medicine now and into the future.

Effective dose was created as a radiological protection dose quantity linked to risk to enable planning of radiological protection for the control of exposure. Its application and use has evolved from occupational and public exposure during work with radiation sources to medicine and applications in patient dosimetry. Effective dose is the sum of doses to organs and tissues within the body weighted according to their sensitivity to radiation for induction of stochastic effects determined from epidemiological studies of exposed populations.