RESUMEN
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: To estimate the contribution of interventional cardiology (IC) to the collective dose in Spain. METHODS: Using the information on frequencies of examinations sourced from the Spanish Society of Cardiology and the patient dose values obtained by the national DOCCACI programme. RESULTS: The fraction of the collective dose per million inhabitants derived from IC was 34 man-Sv (a total of 1600 man-Sv in Spain with 46.5 million inhabitants). The contribution of the IC derived from the medical use of x-rays in Spain resulted in 0.66% of the procedures and 4% of the x-ray collective dose. CONCLUSIONS: Even if this collective radiation dose may seem moderate, at an individual level this medical practice delivers the greatest doses and, therefore, optimisation remains of paramount importance.