The issue of excess or unnecessary radiation exposure has been popular in the lay press and in scientific publications. On June 17, 2011, the New York Times published an article regarding patients who obtained unneeded double CT studies. One year earlier, that same venue published a piece about babies over-radiated due to lack of shielding during imaging procedures. Another article shows pictures of hair loss in stroke patients after repeat CT studies.

Even dentists have had to deal with this issue: a recent article published in Cancer showed increased incidence of meningioma after dental x-rays. This year, an article in Lancet showed a small but triple increase in the risk of leukemia and brain tumors in children receiving over 50 mGy and 60 mGy from CT.

We neuroradiologists take these issues seriously, and AJNR and ASNR have published a monograph addressing them. A podcast accompanies this publication; in it, four respected experts discuss radiation and CT scanning.

Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, AJNR started its “Patient Safety” section and, since then, many articles have appeared there. In this second issue of AJNR News Digest we highlight some of the most recent and important ones: four deal with iterative reconstruction, one with low kVp CT of the neck, and the last with radiation dosage during CTA and DSA.

Image modified from: Vorona GA, Zuccoli G, Sutcavage, et al. The Use of Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction in Pediatric Head CT: A Feasibility Study.