Diagnostic Reference Levels for nuclear medicine imaging in Austria: A nationwide survey of used dose levels for adult patients.

Purpose: To assess dose levels in routine nuclear medicine (NUC) procedures in Austria as a prior to a legislative update of the National Diagnostic Reference Levels (NDRL).

Method: As part of a nationwide survey of common NUC-examinations between June 2019 and November 2019, data sets were collected from 33 Austrian hospitals with NUC equipment. All hospitals were asked to report the NUC imaging devices in use (model, type, year of manufacture, detector material, collimators), the standard protocol parameters for selected examinations (standard activity, collimator, average acquisition time, reconstruction type, use of time-of-flight) and to report data from 10 representative examinations (e.