[Change in radiation exposure in x-ray diagnosis today?]

Abstract

The dosage for the single exposure is today from a half to a quarter of the dosage used 20 years ago. The number of diagnostic X-ray examinations performed has increased; this increase concerns mainly patients whose life expectancy is shorter than the latency period to the manifestation of an X-ray induced malignoma and whose reproduction probability is very low. The genetic risk therefore is zero. This was demonstrated for coronary angiography. The dose distribution in the body shows important differences between conventional X-ray diagnostic and computed tomography. One cannot calculate the radiation risk of roentgen diagnostics from a dose applied to the population or from a dose per head of a population. Such a dose is not suitable for comparison with radiation exposure due to natural sources and civilization. The overall risk of disease is not altered by radiation exposure of an adequate roentgen diagnosis method.