BMJ  2004;328:578-580 (6 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7439.578

Education and debate

Sustainability of medical imaging

¹ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Institute of Clinical Physiology, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy picano@ifc.cnr.it

Doctors and patients should be more aware of the long term risks of radiological investigations

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Contemporary medicine relies heavily on radiological and mediconuclear investigations and procedures. However, the often essential information derived from such investigations is obtained at a risk that few doctors are fully aware of. Increased awareness among both doctors and patients would help reduce the number of inappropriate examinations and the avoidable biological burden on current and future generations. In this article, I outline the effect of ionising testing in our society, review the possible detrimental public health effect based on current estimates of risk, and discuss simple ways of achieving a more cautious approach.

Exposure to medical radiation

Use of radiation for medical examinations and tests is the largest manmade source of radiation exposure. The biological effect of radiation dose received is expressed in milliSievert (mSv). According to the latest estimation of the United Nations, an average of 2.4 mSv/year comes from natural sources.¹ The medical sources of radiation were about one fifth of the . . . [Full text of this article]

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Possible risks posed by medical radiation

Need for more caution

Reducing radiation exposure

Radiological prescribing licence
Editorial transparency
Explicit informed consent for each examination

Conclusion

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