ABSTRACT
Radiation-based imaging and therapy have revolutionized the way medicine is practiced. The individual chapters in this volume have addressed dose, benefit, and risk in medical imaging and provided a historical and current perspective as well as a comprehensive review and analysis of the doses, benefits (typically high when justified), and risks (generally very low when imaging is optimized) of essentially all current radiation-based diagnostic imaging procedures. Imaging procedures using ionizing radiation carry relatively small individual risks that are usually justified by the medical need of patients, especially when diagnostic information is maximized and radiation dose is minimized. A final summary of the essential messages from each chapter is provided here.
