Radiology: Volume 255: Number 3-June 2010
Stephen J. Golding, FRCR
By any standard, the radiation exposure of the population resulting from computed tomography (CT) in Western medicine is currently a controversy. On one hand, some radiologists and medical physicists believe that rising use of CT has resulted in exposure levels that must result in radiation-induced disease and that, given the latency period with which such disease develops, this is creating a medical time bomb, the effects of which we will have to face (1-9). The opposing lobby argues that this is alarmist, that there is a threshold effect for radiation-induced disease, and that there is no evidence of actual harm to patients from diagnostic imaging but that, instead, there is potential harm from avoiding imaging where it is indicated (10-19). It is not the purpose of this editorial to deliberate between these opposing views, but to ask what an appropriate and professional response to the debate should be.