RADIATION: MEDICAL DIAGNOSTIC USES.

Use of radiologic procedures in diagnosis now contributes a significant dose of ionizing radiation to our population. Whether this presents a real risk to the health of the present and future population cannot be determined with certainty from evidence available at this time. Hence, it appears proper to keep the dose to every patient as low as practical consistent with good medical practice. The average dose can be significantly reduced by having more physicians apply the known techniques for minimizing the exposure to the patient. The medical profession has a direct professional concern for the actual or potential risk of damage resulting from the radiation that patients are exposed to during diagnostic x-ray procedures, since these procedures constitute the largest single man-made source of genetically significant radiation our population is now exposed to. It is important to distinguish two distinctly different types of radiation effects-somatic effect, in which the damage affects the health of the person irradiated, and genetic effect that is capable of producing constitutional defects in future progeny over many generations.